“Should we actually indulge in the new Nobel Laureate!?” How reading ...

The case-study of an Austrian reading group focuses on the decision-making process in choosing reading matter. The eight members of the group needed five meetings until they came to an anonymous decision on which novel by French Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano they wanted to read. By mixed-method analysis of the previously recorded and transcribed discussions it showed, that the decision-making process is highly influenced by media-related paratexts, individual reading experience and needs, cultural and social expectations as well as the group’s specific inner structure and hidden agenda, thus converging social, symbolic and pragmatic dimensions of an imagined gratification.