“ANYTHING WITH ‘ENEMIES TO LOVERS’ IS GUARANTEED A MILLION VIEWS”. Om kommunikativa strategier, emotionella uttryck och publikrelationer i BookTok-kommunikation om böcker

Sammanfattning

This study examines how literature is communicated within BookTok, a book-related community onTikTok where users share recommendations, reactions, and reading experiences through short-formvideos. The purpose of the study is to analyze how books are presented and experienced on theplatform, as well as to identify the communicative themes, expressions, and audience relationships thatcharacterize BookTok content.The study is based on a qualitative thematic analysis of 25 English-language BookTok videos withhigh engagement on the platform. In addition, a semi-structured interview was conducted with twocontent creators active within the BookTok community. The analysis is grounded in theories ofparticipatory culture, user-generated content (UGC), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), and affectivemedia theory.The findings show that literature on BookTok is rarely communicated through traditional literarycriticism. Instead, emotions, relatability, and aesthetic expressions are central to how books arepresented. Books are frequently communicated through music, popular culture references, tropes, andemotional reactions rather than formal literary analysis. Five recurring themes were identified in thematerial: book discussions, text-over-sound formats, fandom culture, pop-cultural associations, andreading aesthetics.The study also demonstrates that communication on BookTok is strongly intercontextual. Books gainmeaning through connections to other cultural expressions such as films, music, fictional characters,and internet trends. These references function as communicative shortcuts that make literatureemotionally engaging and easily recognizable for audiences.Furthermore, the relationship between content creators and audiences is shown to be central to theplatform's influence. Comment sections function as social spaces where users collectively interpret,recommend, and discuss literature. Reading therefore becomes a participatory and socially sharedactivity rather than solely an individual experience.Finally, the study concludes that BookTok not only influences which books become popular, but alsoreshapes how literature is communicated and understood within contemporary digital media culture.Through the interaction of affective expressions, participatory practices, and intercontextualreferences, BookTok transforms literature into something social, emotional and algorithmicallyshareable. The study therefore contributes to existing research by highlighting how meaning aroundliterature is collectively constructed through multimodal communication, audience interaction andplatform-specific aesthetics on TikTok.