To Move, to Touch, to Listen: Multisensory Aspects of the Digital Reading Condition

Abstract

The article discusses modes of reading that emerge from reading situations that involve literary digital interfaces and digital audiobooks. Building on analyses of sensorial characteristics of the act of reading a digital audiobook and a literary digital app, respectively, the article presents and defines the concept of multisensory reading. This concept emphasizes the literary work's material and performative features, as well as the experienced reading situation. The authors explore how the digital literary interface changes reading situations and argue that new reading habits create a need to renegotiate what it means to read in a digital age. In particular, sensory aspects can be understood as integrally involved in what they term the digital reading condition.