Cultured and popular literary circuits on Facebook: a case study of Singaporean print culture in social media

Abstract

Introduction. This article presents a case study of social media use by the independent Singaporean bookstore, BooksActually. Method. A genre analysis based on Bhatia’s list of facets was conducted on the bookstore’s Facebook page. BooksActually's Facebook posts, collected in reverse chronological order in March 2015 and cleaned using the software NVivo, were analysed. Analysis. Purposive sampling of Facebook posts was initially employed to find out how BooksActually presents facets of print culture. Responses (comments and likes) were left out in the primary analysis, but were able to provide supplemental information that supported our initial investigation.Results. The findings show that the page blurs the dichotomy between what Escarpit has referred to as the cultured and popular circuits of the book trade. Such findings suggest the possibility that booksellers can reach out to both circuits. It also suggests that librarians, through social media, can also serve the very different needs of members of the cultured and popular circuits of literary taste.Conclusion. We embarked on this study as contributors to current literature and also as documenters of how print culture is not just in existence in the social media realm of the digital landscape, but also how this playing field allows for both cultural and commercial agenda to be achieved with a far greater audience and efficiency compared to what other genres are able to offer.