Reception

What is different and new about the reception of literature in the digital age? By the term "reception" is understood, in general terms in this area of research, the perception and mental processing of literature from the moment of its dissemination, understood in the narrowest sense, and on the other hand its processing in an institutional sense. From the leading question of "reception" at least four topic areas present themselves.

1 Literature prizes form an important object of research on reception even if they are, institutionally, to be located primarily in the area of dissemination and marketing. Literature prizes put the author into the spotlight of national and international attention. It is assumed that national prizes such as the Deutsche Buchpreis in Germany, the Pulitzer Prize in the USA or the Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas in Spain, but also genre specific prizes for the perception of literary texts play a considerable role and have an important gatekeeper function. It is to be researched in which ways they influence and shape public perception, marketing and sales strategy.

2 Also to be researched on the aspect of reception is the history of reception since the 1980s, above all in the tension between the traditional feuilleton style of literary dissemination and the phenomenon of lay criticism. Which pattern of reactions, strategies for distinction and tendencies of dissemination are observable on both sides? Lay criticism is often found in a commercial context of online sales and is often tied to rankings and marketing strategies: recipients compare opinions of other readers, make their own picture of the commercial success and receive personalised book recommendations. The intensified interactivity of lay criticism on the internet can be illustrated by the proliferation of such criticism by individual or connected networks of users on the subject of particular authors or texts. It represents a specific and new form of sociability which the internet has made possible and which is to be analysed qualitatively.

Similarly, the influence of cultural radio channels which offer the possibility of audio on demand through the digital form of the podcast should be researched. As a format podcasts offer for example extensive conversations with authors, thus extending the spectrum and making contact with the traditional medium of literary critique more flexible.

3 Other formats to be examined as phenomena relating to reception are blogs, private websites, fan projects, electronic reading groups and reading apps. In these formats the literary salon is displaced to the internet. Relevant in this context are, among other things, the user behaviour of individual participants and aspects of performance such as management of virtual identity. New forms of reading could be examined, social reading on the internet.

An extremely worthy topic of research in times of massive increase in turnover for E-books, kindles and iPads is literary reception with the help of electronic reading devices. Is a significant media transition occurring from the classic book to the tablet? And how do these forms of reading change the perception of literature? The debate about reading devices concerns naturally not only the areas of reception but also the production and dissemination of literature. It could be observed here how the politics of publishers and public relations work in the age of digitalisation change, also in an international comparison. Generally the question of authorship is important here, copyright law, areas of practice relating to electronic editions and the technical dimensions of digitalisation.

4 A further topic area is the meta-discussion about literature and literary dissemination in the age of digitalisation. The debates about the future of the medium of books between crisis prognosis and media hype, have still not been researched enough, above all with respect to the requirements, strategies and forms of presentation as well as its traditions. The consequences of the new forms of digital, networked literature for the categories of literary studies description and analysis have not yet been sounded out.