Honors Program

Honors in English, [Honors-in-Discipline (Choose below)]

Date of Award

5-2021

Thesis Professor(s)

Mark Baumgartner

Thesis Professor Department

Literature and Language

Thesis Reader(s)

Martha Michieka

Abstract

Around 2010, a group of online content creators, commonly referred to as "Youtubers" or "BookTubers," began to emerge on YouTube.com. This community's content revolves around many topics under the realm of literature including book discussions, reviews, genre discussions, and many more. While the group started off small, it has grown significantly over the past decade; some of the most prominent creators have several hundred thousand subscribers. In the ten years since its emergence, the creators and content have transformed, where many in the beginning made video discussions just for fun, and now many of them have grown their channel into a financially successful career and have formed partnerships with publishing companies.

Specifically within the BookTube community, young adult author John Green has revolutionized the platform and seen unprecedented amount of success. His novels along with their film and TV adaptations have inspired thousands of Booktube reviews and discussions, and John and his brother Hank Green have gained a massive following on YouTube.

This essay examines BookTube as a collaborative community, a marketing platform, and a space for reception theory analysis by examining readers' discussions of John Green's Looking for Alaska. BookTube and other online communities are becoming increasingly important in people's lives, and analyzing these platforms is essential to understanding future generations.

Publisher

East Tennessee State University

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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