Does a film adaptation of a novel influence reading behavior? The answer is on the Web

Abstract

The paper analyzes user activity on three social networks devoted to readers to see if the adaptation of a novel as a film increases user activity on the book. Additions to a personal library, reviews, and intentions to read a book were collected from Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Amazon for three titles: Divergent, The wolf of Wall Street, and The monuments men. All three novels were adapted on screen between December 2013 and March 2014. Results show that the release of the film is the most influential event on users’ activity as it is recorded on the social networks studied. Further research should clarify possible differences among readers’ communities on the web and exploit user-generated contents such as discussions and reviews to understand how readers’ perception of books evolves.