Social Media and the Review

Abstract

Social Media and the Review Jeffrey R. Di Leo Where should you go to find out about the latest novel by your favorite author? Or to learn about the hottest works in your area of interest? Until the end of twentieth century, the clear and unambiguous answer to these questions was “book reviews.” Today, though, “book blogs” and “social reading” are competing—and compelling—responses to these questions. So, how do you choose? In many ways, book reviews are now the throwback choice. Written by specialists and generalists alike, book reviews populated magazines, journals, newspapers, and other forms of print media up until the rise of the World Wide Web. Some were written by nationally recognized writers for nationally distributed publications like the New York Times Book Review and The Nation; others by “professional reviewers” who sold their reviews to different publications; and still others by “non-professionals” who gave their efforts to scores of periodicals that put aside valuable print space for reviews. Reviews have been contested and controversial throughout their history, and there have always been efforts to improve them. In perhaps the best recent study of book reviewing, Gail Pool’s Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America (2007), three specific suggestions are made: 1) “we need to devise a better means of choosing books for review”; 2) “we need to find better ways to reward reviewers”; and 3) “we need to better train. . .reviewers and review editors, better preparing them for the technical constraints and demands of the genre and, more broadly, alerting them to critical and ethical issues in the field.” But as the print publication age gives way to the electronic age, concerns like those raised by Pool seem distant—particularly when viewed through the lens of “book blogs” and “social reading.” The issue of a “better means of choosing” books evaporates when the constraints of print publication gives way to the expanses of the electronic dissemination. Book blogs cover and recover every imaginable corner of the book world. Book Blogger Directory (bookbloggerdirectory.com), for example, has links to “Fiction Book Blogs,” “Non-Fiction Book Blogs,” “Religious Book Blogs,” and “Young Adult Book Blogs.” The sublinks under “Fiction Book Blogs” alone then list “Children’s Under 12,” “Comics & Graphic Novel,” “Erotica, GBLT & Adult Romance,” “Historical, Classic Literature,” “General Fiction, Poetry, Everything!,” “Action Adventure, Mystery, Horror & Thrillers, Espionage,” “Romance,” “Science Fiction & Fantasy,” and, last but not least, my favorite of the sublinks, “Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy.” In the world according to book blogs, Pool’s “better means of choosing” issue translates into “opportunities for coverage.” Book blogs as a genre don’t have selectivity issues because anything can be covered or “selected.” Whereas Pool was concerned with lack of selectivity in book reviews because it leads to “overlooking good books, overpraising bad ones,” in the case of book blogs, the concern is not “overlooking good books” (How is it possible to miss one when all seem to be included?) but “overpraising bad ones.” To be sure, the most obvious negative potential to be found in the book blog is its capacity to become a bad books paradise. Pool’s comment about finding better ways to train reviewers and review editors seems remote from the world of book blogging. While there are bloggers and blog editors that meet the demands Pool is placing on book reviewers, the vast majority of book bloggers and blog editors do not. Nor is it reasonable to expect them to become versed in the “technical constraints and demands of the genre” since server space is their only technical constraint and time is the main requirement of the genre. Critical and ethical issues involved in book blogging are only beginning to emerge. However, unlike book reviewing for financial compensation, which has its own ethical and critical issues, reviews in book blogs are seldom compensated. Still, opportunities for logrolling—or even blogging on one’s own work—are widely available. Book reviewing can also be hindered by academic career aspirations. In a recent article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Rachel Toor, who spent a dozen years as an acquisitions editor at Oxford and Duke University Presses, wonders if “the time...