Young People Reading

Empirical Research Across International Contexts

Evelyn Arizpe, Gabrielle Cliff Hodges

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138291577
• eBook ISBN: 9781351966405
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The value of small-scale qualitative research projects into young people's reading is often underestimated. Yet these finely tuned studies, with a precise focus and highly specialised approach, can provide us with profound insights into the richness and variety of young people's reading practices.

Bringing together contributors from six continents, this fascinating volume explores researchers' experiences of investigating the reading habits, preferences and practices of young people aged 12–21. Detailing a variety of empirical methodologies and research methods, its chapters also consider reading in an array of contexts, in various languages and using diverse media.

Key issues addressed in the book include:

• the complexity of sociocultural similarities and differences in young people's reading in international contexts
• multilingual, bilingual and monolingual readers' experiences of reading
• how young readers use a range of different print and digital media
• how our understanding of the range of texts available to young readers and the different contexts of and purposes for reading can be enhanced through small-scale qualitative research.

Providing in-depth discussion of contributors' research and findings, and touching on many different contexts, text types and media, this volume will support and inspire current and future researchers, lecturers and teachers interested in young people's reading.

Section 1

Making adolescent reading choices visible

1

The possibilities of comics reading

Uncovering a complex and situated reading experience in Canada

Lucia Cedeira Serantes

Map 1

Changing perspectives on comics and their readers

Close your eyes and imagine someone reading comics. I will give you ten seconds and then ask that you come back to this page. Without being presumptuous, my guess is that you imagined a child or a teenager, probably male, reading superhero comics. Inspired by the typical answer to this exercise and personal conversation, I detected a lack of information about why teens and young adult readers are attracted to and read comics. The research work discussed here (Cedeira Serantes, 2014) responds to gaps in the research about comics reading, exploring and bringing to light the diversity and richness of the experience, using readers themselves as the core voices. For example, comics are increasingly characterised as rich, complex, challenging, diverse and multilayered reading materials. Despite this, it is commonplace to present teen readers of comics as readers who lack reading skills or discriminatory taste: reluctant readers, English as a Second Language (ESL) readers, at-risk readers or visual readers. Historically, comics have been popular reading materials for youth, and their content and communities an important part of youth culture (Wright, 2001). By contrast, educational and cultural institutions and the mainstream media have consistently diminished or attacked their value (e.g., Groensteen, 2000; Lopes, 2009).

These divergent attitudes towards comics have attracted the attention of researchers, educators and librarians, who try to explain the appeal of the format or to find an appropriate use of comics in their institutional settings. However, most research has focused primarily on the texts themselves, either from the perspective of the form, the narratives or their production. In comparison, the topic of reception (audiences, readers and/or fans) has been less prominent and is often specifically focused on the study of fans. The association between the fan experience and comics has colonised the experience of reading comics, especially in mainstream culture, leaving almost no room for the possibility of other recognisable experiences: if you are committed to reading comics, inevitably you are, will become, or are expected to be, a fan. In contrast, Gabilliet (2010) or Pustz (1999) point to the need for more research about what they label as ‘casual readers’, or the bulk of the comics readership.

Because of my genuine interest in readers, I made their thoughts and experiences relative to comics reading the core of this project and due to their centrality, they are introduced straight away: nine females and eight males, between the ages of 17 and 25 years old. They were recruited at three different sites: a public library, a comics store and a university with a large undergraduate population. All of them at the time were living in London, Ontario in Canada although some of them were not originally from that city or even from Canada itself. Some of their pseudonyms were selected by them and others by me. These participants’ reading experiences with comics also varied, with some being beginner readers and others comics readers since childhood (see Table 1.1)¹.

Table 1.1Participants’ comics reading experiences

Pseudonym	Age	Last comics read (title + main creator)	Recruitment site/Occupation	Reader status
Alison	23	Black Hole by Charles Burns, Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, and Lucky by Gabrielle Bell	University/Graduate student	Intermediate/Avid
Baa	17	Reread Watchmen by Alan Moore; Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; and the 2nd volume of Phonogram by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie	Public library/High school student	Intermediate/Avid
Daniel	23	Mome anthology (Fantagraphics); an omnibus Captain American by Ed Brubaker; Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine; and Torpedo by Enrique Sánchez Abulí et al.	Comic book store/Undergraduate student, comic book store staff	Avid
Devi	18	Squee and I Feel Sick by Jhonen Vasquez, and Hellsing by Kouta Hirano	University/Undergraduate student	Intermediate/Avid
HunterS	19	First three trade paperbacks in The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman; fifth instalment of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and a collection of Dr Who stories	University/Undergraduate student	Beginner
Jacob	17	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, an adaptation of Frankenstein by Jason Cobley, and a comic in French about the history of rock and roll	Snowball sampling/High school student, library volunteer	Intermediate
Kalo	24	Filth by Grant Morrison; Ex-Machina by Brian K. Vaughan; Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki	University/Graduate student	Avid
Lorraine	19	Fifth volume of the Wet Moon series by Sophie Campbell; the first volume of Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo; and the first trade paperback of the new Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett	Snowball sampling/Undergraduate student	Avid
Marian	24	Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross and Beast by Marian Churchland	Public library/Intern.	Avid
Oracle	23	Power Girl with Amanda Conner as the artist; Batgirl by Gail Simone, and Muppet King Arthur by Roger Langridge	University/Graduate student	Avid
Preacher	18	Maus by Art Spiegelman, Preacher by Garth Ennis, and Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan	University/Undergraduate student	Intermediate
Promethea	21	Second volume of Promethea by Alan Moore and J. H. Williams III and The Swamp Thing by Alan Moore	Public market/Undergraduate student	Beginner
Selina	24	Ex-Machina by Brian K. Vaughan; Street Angel by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca; and volume one of Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore	University/Graduate student, bookstore staff	Intermediate/Avid
Shade	24	The Changing Man by Peter Milligan, but especially because of the artist Brendon McCarthy; a single issue of Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire, and the first issue of Flash by Geoff Johns	Snowball sampling/IT professional	Avid
Shalmanaser	20	Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung adapted by Roy Thomas, Maus by Art Spiegelman, and a collection of short stories based on H. P. Lovecraft works	Public library/IT professional	Intermediate
Templesmith	20	Omnibus for Silent Hill by Scott Ciencin; a manga based on the television series Battlestar Galactica, and Maus by Art Spiegelman	Snowball sampling/Undergraduate student	Avid
Walker	23	V for Vendetta by Alan Moore; the graphic novel adaptation of the animation movie Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman and David Polonsky, and a Frank Miller comic he could not remember the title of	Snowball sampling/Undergraduate student	Sporadic

Finding comics readers among scholarly disciplines

This study uses ‘comics’ as an umbrella term that refers to different expressions and formats the medium takes, for example webcomics, comic strips, manga, graphic novels, trade paperbacks, albums. When a participant refers to a specific format, the particular term will be used.

Comics studies is not a single discipline; it is multidisciplinary by nature, with slippery boundaries that extend from art history and literature to media studies and gender and ethnic studies (Jenkins, 2012). Similarly, reading is also approached from different perspectives. For example, Littau in her Theories of Reading (2006) touches on reading in the context of literary theory, feminism, cultural studies and book history, a broad coverage despite missing the rich production from education and literacy-focused projects (e.g., Alvermann and Hinchman, 2012; Cliff Hodges, 2016). One major difficulty (and, in the end, reward) of my own study was to locate and engage with relevant scholarly literature on the rather narrow but intricate duo of comics and readers, making it mandatory to examine three fields of study: media studies, library and information studies (LIS) and education. My approach to reading in this study emerges from a tradition of scholars from LIS and closely related disciplines that have examined the experience of pleasure reading from the reader’s perspective (e.g., Fuller and Rehberg Sedo, 2013; Mackey, 2007; Ross et al., 2006, 2018; Sweeney, 2010). These researchers situate adult, teen and child readers at the centre of their studies and, with different objectives in mind, explore the many elements that are intertwined in the experience of reading and being a reader.

Historically, the fields of cultural and media studies are the main sources for studies about readers and fans of comics, with the first tracking back to the wave of popularity for comics during the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Wolf and Fiske, 1949). These disciplines focus much of their research on the response, influence or interaction between readers/fans as audience, and comics as cultural artefacts. As mentioned earlier, researchers such as Pustz (1999) and Brown (2001), joined later by Gabilliet (2010) and Woo (2011), started problematising the focus on fans and made visible the analytical possibilities opened up by interviewing actual readers to explore issues such as composition and diversity in the comics audience.

Education and LIS share a historical and contemporary interest in developing an understanding of and, more significantly, an applicability of the medium of comics. In their historical overviews, Nyberg (2002) and Tilley (2007, 2012) thoroughly review these fields. In relation to comics, both are in the process of evolving from generally negative attitudes that question their worthiness to positive ones focused on legitimisation and appropriate uses. However, one characteristic that connected both positive and negative views is the lack of readers’ research and evidence (Ellis and Highsmith, 2000; Tilley, 2007), a gap this chapter begins to bridge.

The LIS professional literature tends to have a utilitarian goal, offering librarians the necessary information and tools to select, acquire and organise comics as well as ideas to develop programmes and activities that use those comics, leaving little room to explore the reasons for readers’ attraction to comics (Cedeira Serantes, 2013). Snowball is one of few researchers (others are Ziolkowska and Howard, 2010; Zabriskie, 2010) who examine the triangle formed by libraries, graphic novels and their readers. Although Snowball’s thesis project perpetuates, to a degree, the link between reluctant readers and graphic novels, it also points to previously unexplored topics such as the role of the family in the development of an interest in graphic novels and challenges other unquestioned assumptions such as the idea that all teens enjoy reading graphic novels (Snowball, 2007, 2008, 2011). In education, Sabeti notes that comics are ‘usually synonymous with low literacy levels, reluctant readers and a predominantly male audience’ (2011: 137); comics are often presented as tools to achieve other objectives; for example, engagement in the classroom or with a topic, new language learning or even self-esteem. To surpass this narrow understanding, literacy researcher Botzakis invites researchers to see ‘what people do with texts’ (2009: 58) before attributing meanings, uses and functions to texts to be used in the classroom.

Although this utilitarian focus is understandable, a more expansive understanding is developing due to a combination of several factors: the slow inclusion of comics in teachers’ and librarians’ education (e.g., Williams and Peterson, 2009), the recognition of comics in awards or the development of comics-focused lists, comics’ presence in new curricular requirements, such as the Common Core in the United States (e.g., Clemmons and Olvey, 2015; Monnin, 2013) and the diversification of the comics publishing field, for example, with the increasing availability of informational comics.

Why and how do we speak with comics readers?

In the conclusion of her work on romance reading, Radway claims a focal point in research for ‘real people with previously existing needs, desires, inte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of contributors
• World map
• Introduction
• Section 1 Making adolescent reading choices visible
• Section 2 Adolescent reading in times of crisis
• Section 3 Young adult readers’ experiences within and beyond school and university
• Index