Backroom Research

Goodreads is an online social cataloguing tool that enables users to register books and create individualized shelves to intellectually organize their collections. Shelves are fully customizable so that users can delineate function (e.g. read, currently reading, to-read), chronology (e.g. read in 2011, read in 2012, read for undergraduate), genre (e.g. science fiction, romance, non-fiction), or any other personalized organizational system that is appropriate for and appealing to the specific user. Additionally, users are able to rate and review books, create reading goals, vote on book lists, and enable a recommendation mechanism that suggests reading material based on the user’s existing preferences and ratings. Goodreads is a highly social environment, enabling “friending” similar to Facebook so that feed activity is present on the user’s dashboard; forums, groups, internal messaging, and wall commenting are likewise part of the website.

As such, Goodreads is potentially tailored to a diverse user base. The cataloguing function is not dependent on the social aspect, and as a result some users will completely neglect friending, commenting, reviewing, and otherwise communicating, instead utilizing the site solely for organizational purposes. In this respect, the emotive component is minimized for a certain number of users, since relations between users are not necessarily the primary focus of this group.

However, my own anecdotal experience with Goodreads indicates that much of the site’s community is very active. Because the site’s catalogue is comprehensive, it is not tailored to any specific subset of the reading community (e.g. academics, purveyors of “serious” literature, science fiction enthusiasts, Twihards, etc.); rather, the only demographic that Goodreads is limited to is that of those who enjoy reading, however voraciously or infrequently. Consequently, the emotions related to the communication occurring on Goodreads are diverse, but generally dialectic in nature. Debates arise over reviews, usually those that are polarizing, and the commenting functionality can spawn long conversations about the merits and pitfalls of particular novels. My own experience has proven very positive; while debate and disagreement is frequent, trolling is minimal. Emotive relations can be characterized as occasionally charged and opinionated, but usually inoffensive and respectful, and ultimately the website encourages topical conversations relating to the user’s area of reading interest, whatever it may be. The user is able to engage with only selected material and chosen fellow users, perhaps accounting for the low levels of trolling and the communal atmosphere.

In terms of relating to the study, the underlying purpose of Goodreads, regardless of the handy cataloguing functionality and social networking, is nonetheless commercial. Books are linked to Amazon, and thus any positive reviews or conversation literally enable users to impulsively purchase the material immediately. The emotive relations involving dialectic discussion allow for easy purchasing, a commercialized theme that seems somewhat antithetical to the library-esque cataloguing of the site’s structure. In studying this further, the private nature of Goodreads accounts would pose problems for methodology; like Facebook, profiles, communication, and reviews can be made private, barring outsiders from access. While many reviews, and conversations stemming from those reviews, are public, this feature would still limit researchers, and perhaps would encourage a highly ethnographic, participative approach.