Reading Practices and Reading Norms: are Mobilizations Possible?

Abstract

The paper explores what individual readers mean by "to read enough" and "to read properly", i.e. the norm that governs reading practices. The hypothesis is that in recent decades, the normative ideas have been extremely diverse, they detached themselves to a certain extend from the reading practices and spread in different directions. This dispersal, the hypothesis states, is also associated with a reduction of the cultural imperative to read. The question is whether mobilizations are thinkable – i.e. whether it is possible to encourage the heterogeneous readers and reading communities to follow a more coherent reading norm as well as what the content of this norm could be.