Page 147 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

146 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 7, 2015

enabler for social reading, and the natural place for this activity to cultivate.” Therefore, it could be
said that social reading combines the digital texts with the interactive functions provided by social
media. Compared to the traditional reading emphasizing book and contents, social reading puts
emphasis on readers and social bonds (Zhong, 2011).
As a new reading type, the rapid development of social reading undoubtedly challenges some
traditional concepts like readers and reading, and influences the production and consuming of
the texts as well. Despite increasing research attention to social reading, published literature
on this topic is scarce. The extant literature on social reading primarily focus on the concepts
or classifications (Bi, Zeng, & M. Li, 2013; Stein, 2013; Y. M. Wang, 2013), the platform
development (Antonio, Alonso, Gomez, & Linder, 2013; Xu, 2014), or library reading promotion
(Y. Liu, 2014; Mennella, 2011). The current literature, however, does not fully specify the social
psychological mechanisms of social reading including social reading motivation. Reading
motivation is the force that guides and maintains our reading behaviors (F. N. Song, G. Song, She,
& B. Y. Zhang, 2000). Reading motivation has such a great impact on our reading activity that our
reading activity could not happen without it (B. Y. Zhang, 1992). Meanwhile, many studies have
indicated that adolescents are more likely to be influenced by new media compared to the other
groups (Buckingham & Willett, 2006; Gross, 2004). Therefore, the aim of the present study is to
explore the adolescents’ social reading motivation and provide an in-depth understanding of (a)
the dimensionality of adolescents’ social reading motivation and (b) the group differences of the
adolescents’ social reading motivation by gender, grade level and living area.

1 Literature review

The present study focuses on adolescents’ social reading motivation, and social reading defined
here belongs to digital reading family. Therefore, relevant literatures in two separate but related
fields are reviewed: children’s reading motivation and digital reading motivation.

1.1 Children’s reading motivation

Traditionally, reading has been viewed as a language and cognitive endeavor. Rooted in the
cognitive tradition, numerous studies were conducted to examine the cognitive processes in reading
(Brown & Pressley, 1994). However, more than a decade of research into reading comprehension
had not resulted in any noticeable impact on the overall reading proficiency of the young readers
(Stahl, 1998). The intractability of this problem enabled researchers to realize that readers’
behaviors could possibly be influenced by one’s motivation, beliefs and personal needs besides
cognitive factors (Lorch & Van den Broek, 1997). As a result, some researchers began to consider
an alternative route to reading activity (Greaney & Neuman, 1980; Guthrie & Greaney, 1991). In