Beyond Market Models and Resistance: Organizations as a Middle Layer in the History of Reading

Abstract

Two theoretical models dominate discussion of research methods in the history of reading: “market” models such as Robert Darnton’s communications circuit and “resistance” models such as those that draw on Michel de Certeau’s concept of poaching. This article suggests that both make important contributions but also have limitations, especially when researching later nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century print culture. An alternative approach considers institutional sites of print as a middle layer that can bridge the gap between structure and agency and between macro and micro views. These sites are also spaces where activities of reading and writing may intersect, since they provide opportunities for individuals to both produce and consume texts. Moreover, an explicitly institutional view gives researchers a window onto the acts of reading and writing by nonelite groups for whom few individual records survive.