Platforms for Social Reading: Material Imagery in Digital Book Formats

As a readingenvironment, the screen offers diverse experiences. Reading documents onscreen both preserves the markers of textuality and radically changesthem. While at first electronic forms of books unbound the book byremoving material accoutrements and metaphorical paraphernalia,more recently e-book platforms have adopted the imagery of thematerial book. This, coupled with the new possibilities for social readingin an online environment, prompts a rethink about reading. Often seen as aprivate act, reading has changed as a result the social web. However, asuccessful and enduring mobile framework to combine, rival or extend thefunctions offered by these early examples has so far proved elusive todesign, implement and/or monetize. This emphasizes not only the enduringpower of print but also the connections readers tend to have with themarkers of the material on and beyond the page.