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Becoming a Good BookTuber

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REL0010.1177/0033688220906905RELC JournalSuárez and González Argüello

SI: English for Academic and Professional Purposes in the Digital Era

RELC Journal

Becoming a Good BookTuber

1­–10
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0033688220906905
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Ma del Mar Suárez and

M. Vicenta González Argüello
Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Abstract
Audiovisual platforms like YouTube facilitate the introduction of informal learning practices for
their pedagogical exploitation both in class and online. One such practice is the creation of a
BookTuber community for recommending books, thus making it possible for students to engage in
an out-of-class community where common interests can be shared. In this innovations in practice
article, we present a project carried out with two English for Specific Purposes (ESP) groups of
Media Studies of the University of Barcelona. The aim of this project was to determine features
that make a BookTuber a good communicator so students could apply these features to their
own BookTube video practice. Students could then use these features as a guideline for peer-
review comments published on YouTube and the creation of an online BookTuber community.
Students were first introduced to the concept of intertextuality in order to understand how
it fosters connections among audiovisual consumers. The BookTuber community was then
presented and the students viewed and analysed several BookTube videos with the objective of
creating an evaluation rubric identifying the key aspects of a good BookTuber. The students then
created their own BookTube video and uploaded it onto YouTube. They were also required to
watch at least two videos created by their peers, post comments that considered key aspects
included in the evaluation rubric and express their personal reactions to and opinions of the
videos. In addition, an extended version of the peer-review was also required to achieve subject
credits. This twofold feedback allowed for the practice of two discourse styles for the same
content: informal (for YouTube) and formal (for the teacher). As a result, students had firsthand
experience of becoming a BookTuber while developing their critical thinking skills for peer
evaluation and academic and professional purposes of career development.

Keywords
BookTuber, digital literacy, peer evaluation, intertextuality, social networks

Corresponding author:
Ma del Mar Suárez, Educació Lingüística i Literària, Universitat de Barcelona, Pg. Vall d’Hebron, 171,
Barcelona, Catalunya 08007, Spain.
Email: mmsuarez@ub.edu
2 RELC Journal 00(0)

Introduction
In today’s digitally-connected world, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
can obtain additional exposure to and practice of English far beyond the classroom.
Many social networking platforms currently available provide attractive, beneficial tools
and authentic input for EFL learners. Introducing these platforms in the curriculum facil-
itates the implementation of informal learning practices for their pedagogical exploita-
tion, both in class and online (Sauro, 2017). One such practice is the creation of a
BookTuber community for recommending books in a class setting. Since its boom
around 2012, the BookTuber phenomenon has continued to gather the attention of view-
ers interested in sharing, discussing and finding new book recommendations on YouTube.
The incorporation of a BookTuber practice in the Media Studies curriculum enabled
students to analyse this phenomenon from a communicative point of view while engag-
ing in an out-of-class community and also served to establish the teaching innovation
presented in this article, which aims to explain how Media Studies students created their
own BookTuber video, analysed peer video creations and participated in a newly-formed
BookTuber community with comments of opinions and feedback.

The Teaching Context

Implemented at the University of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain, this innovation was car-
ried out in ‘Oral and Written Communication Skills in English’, a compulsory subject for
all freshman students of the Media Studies degree and sophomore students of the
Information and Communication double degree programme. These degrees offer three
language-based communication subjects for specific purposes adapted to meet the needs of
future audiovisual communication professionals. Two of these subjects are delivered in the
students’ main first language (L1s tend to be Catalan and Spanish) while the course we
focus on here is offered in English. This course consists of six main media-related modules:
Marketing, Advertising, Radio, Film and Television, New Media and Press. The subject
implements a communicative task-based and project-based approach requiring students, in
almost every module, to elaborate an individual or group task or project, with reflection on
each of these included in an e-portfolio. The innovation in practice presented here occurs
within the ‘New Media’ module and responds to the ‘YouTuber’ phenomenon, seen as just
one form of media communication which these students might implement in their future
careers. In this project, students were required to film a BookTube video, either recom-
mending a book or carrying out any of the typical BookTuber practices1 and then to analyse
their peers’ videos from the perspective of a communication professional.
The participants in this study were 83 students distributed in two different classes,
with a mean age of 18.6 and a wide range of English proficiency level: A2 to C1 on the
Common European Framework of Languages. Nonetheless, most students had a B2 level
after receiving approximately 1,300 hours of compulsory formal instruction in English
as well as additional informal input or extracurricular EFL classes throughout their edu-
cation. While a B2 level is required to pass the subject, the students’ level does not neces-
sarily determine their grade at the end of the course as the evaluation of tasks and projects
also takes into account communicative effectiveness and other competences such as
critical thinking, literacy in multimodal environments and language learning autonomy.
Suárez and González Argüello 3

The BookTuber project included aspects previously covered in several modules of the
course as well as other degree subjects. The initial premise that online communities share
interests was presented and then developed by the concept of intertextuality. This con-
cept is essential to the students’ preparation for their careers, as it will provide models
which will serve to inspire their productions both as students and future professionals.
Furthermore, both communication skills in multimodal environments and creativity play
important roles in this project as well as others in the course. They serve to foster neces-
sary talent which will ultimately provide a competitive edge in the highly competitive
world of media, serving students to obtain better results and be more prolific on an aca-
demic and professional level.

Reason for the Innovation

The development of digital literacy is one of the fundamental objectives of the Media
Studies and Information and Communication degrees. As Hafner et al. (2013: 813) point
out, ‘the kind of reading, writing, and communication that occurs in online, digitally-
mediated contexts demands a different set of skills from those traditionally taught in
language classrooms, because such new literacy practices draw on the affordances of
digital media to make possible new forms of representation and interaction’. These prac-
tices cover even more competences if an additional (or foreign) language is involved in
the process (Belcher, 2017).
While young adult students are familiar with the dynamics of social network plat-
forms from their own daily use (Mueller, 2009), it is highly unlikely that they have for-
mally reflected on their communicative functioning. Consequently, it was considered
necessary to help our students to analyse the features of communication, engagement and
interaction in digital platforms so they could comprehend them from an academic point
of view (Carretero et al., 2017).
Thus, this project had three general objectives: first, to have students analyse
BookTube videos, i.e. videos discussing all things bookish; secondly, to have students
elaborate a BookTube video themselves; and third, to have them evaluate two videos of
their choice in terms of communicative effectiveness and quality in a digital environ-
ment, both formally and informally. While students were required to provide only con-
structive feedback on their classmates’ productions, they were also asked to highlight
features that could be improved.
As Sorensen and Mara (2014) claim, giving students an opportunity to provide feed-
back on the work of their peers is essential as knowledge is constructed from participa-
tion in the community created for activities in informal learning contexts. Based on
previous analyses of similar audiovisual productions and multimodal productions of
expert BookTubers, this feedback served to foster the students’ multimodal communica-
tive competence (López, 2016; Sued, 2017; Thomas et al., 2019).

Description of the Innovation

The project lasted for a month and consisted of three phases, guided by six specific
objectives:
4 RELC Journal 00(0)

Table 1. BookTuber Project Stages.

Stage Topic Student activity

Pre-video Intertextuality and Get familiar with the concept of intertextuality.
(in-class) its implications Research topic and provide further examples.
Book clubs arousal from books/referents sharing.
The BookTuber Get familiar with online interactive book clubs led by
phenomenon BookTubers on YouTube and other social network
platforms.
Vocabulary activities related to the BookTube world.
Tips to become a successful BookTuber.
Analysis of Analysis of BookTuber videos in terms of setting/frames/
BookTuber videos clothing; speaking style/body language; video editing
(post-production).
Elaboration of the evaluation rubric.
Presentation of settings adjustments on YouTube and
video requirements.
Vídeo (out Creation of one’s Script writing.
in class BookTube video Choice of setting/frames/clothing.
(either individually Video shooting.
or in groups of Video editing.
2 or 3) Video upload.
Video sharing on YouTube class playlist.
Feedback Feedback provided Students comment on at least two BookTube videos.
(out in class) by both teacher Students submit the formal evaluation of two aspects of
and students. the evaluation rubric for two videos of their choice.
Teacher provides feedback to both videos and feedback
provided by students, and posts comments on the videos.

i) to develop competence in English for Media Communication purposes;

ii) to practise ICT skills on video and YouTube;
iii) to discover connections between video contents in order to establish a BookTuber
community;
iv) to develop one’s creativity;
v) to provide a showcase for communicative competence in digital media; and
vi) to analyse and provide constructive feedback on peer Booktuber productions.

In the first phase of the innovation,2 the importance for all media professionals, archi-
vists or librarians to be able to interconnect similar or related works in multiple formats
was explained. Intertextuality, which abounds in both written and non-written texts,
including live performances and digital media, was highlighted as a framework for
focussing on the function of BookTubers as transmitters of both knowledge about books
and passion for reading. This concept also served to foster the creation of a reading com-
munity whereby this knowledge and passion could be re-shared. Three class sessions
were devoted to this first pre-video production phase with the remaining phases com-
pleted out of class (see Table 1).
Suárez and González Argüello 5

In the Session 1 of this phase, the concept of intertextuality, along with multimodal
examples of this phenomenon, was presented. Students brainstormed examples of multi-
modal intertextuality (allusion, quotation, calque, pastiche, parody, satire, among others)
so they could establish common likes and dislikes and forge cultural bonds with their
peers. This process is similar to how a reading community can arise from sharing reading
experiences leading to a firmly established book club. Session 2 focussed on the social
media ‘influencer’ phenomenon (Lee and Watkins, 2016) and, more specifically, on
BookTubers specializing in promoting books. This session, of particular interest to the
students, examined social media communication developments. Lexicon particular to the
BookTuber community was also practised via a focus on forms vocabulary activity. In
Session 3, aspects of BookTuber multimodal communication were examined (i.e. set-
ting, camera frames and angles, attire and use of props, speaking styles and body lan-
guage). In addition, features of post- production video editing such as the inclusion of
supers3 and sound effects to reinforce the message or to add humour were considered.
The students viewed and analysed videos and attended to the general requirements of
their own video production. Moreover, an evaluation rubric was created (see Figure 1) in
collaboration with the students and published on the course Moodle virtual campus as a
guideline for what was expected in the students’ own BookTuber videos.
In the second phase of the project, students developed the script for the video and its
recording based on the evaluation rubric. Students were allowed to select their own book
and the vast majority chose fiction books while only a few chose books related to their
academic major. The videos were uploaded by the students onto their own YouTube
channel and access was provided to the teacher via a url. The teacher created a YouTube
viewing list using a class YouTube identity which included the students’ videos set as
‘unlisted’ to preserve the privacy of the students’ videos.
In the third phase, the students were asked to informally comment on two of their
peers’ YouTube videos as if they were commenting on a friend’s video. As guidelines for
this phase, students were asked to first make a general comment on the contents, fol-
lowed by reference to two positive aspects of the video, two aspects for improvement,
and then to finish with a comment in a positive light. While students did comment on the
YouTube videos, hardly any video creators reacted to the posted comments with the
exception of providing the occasional ‘like’ response.
Students were also asked to provide a formal academic analysis of the videos focus-
sing on any two aspects of their two selected videos. In addition to the aspects featured
in the rubric, they were also asked to consider other communicative features related to
natural speech and hesitation devices. The students had to illustrate their analysis with
specific instances from the video.
While the feedback comments on YouTube were mostly friendly, informal and rather
short, the analyses provided to the teacher for each video were much longer (on average
one-page), of formal register and included more critical comments of their peers’ efforts.
In this phase, the teacher also evaluated the videos using the evaluation rubric and
anonymously shared, with each student, the formal feedback received on their own
videos, previously softening any harsh criticism included. Furthermore, she briefly
commented on the videos on YouTube focussing on their content rather than on the
students’ performances.
6 RELC Journal 00(0)

Figure 1. BookTuber evaluation rubric.

Suárez and González Argüello 7

For the most part, this project was student-centred. The role of the teacher was that of
a planner and organizer as well as instructor in both the initial and middle phases as she
was in charge of the design of the project phases and activities (Hafner, 2014) so students
could then, working autonomously, develop their digital communicative competence
(Paterna, 2018). As a mentor, the teacher provided feedback on the students’ perfor-
mances, as did the students who also provided peer feedback through both the YouTube
comments feature and their formal analyses.

Reflection
This BookTuber project covers the five dimensions (doing, meaning, relating, thinking
and being) of digital literacies and the affordances of digital tools identified by Jones and
Hafner (2012). After watching BookTuber video models (‘doing’), posting their own
BookTube video forced the students to communicate the contents of their book review or
book tag by combining word, image, graphic and sound, thus practising many of the
‘meaning’ competences that they are expected to master by the end of their degree. They
also ‘related’ their own practice to both previous practices and their peers’ by interacting
online and providing the teacher with a more formal kind of feedback on their peers’
videos while ‘thinking’ about the way they wanted to convey their own content and those
addressed to others. Finally, they also had the possibility to choose to ‘be’ themselves in
their own video or to adopt a BookTuber persona, something very few students did.
Regardless of their choice, the vast majority succeeded in becoming protagonists of a
BookTuber video and in following its relatively standard features (Semingson et al.,
2017); that is, they succeeded in meeting the requirements established in the evaluation
rubric. As language accuracy was only one of many aspects that would be evaluated in
the video, students were able to work on many communication aspects other than oral
text production and much care was taken to properly communicate beyond words.
Despite the low amount of online interaction, the students watched more videos than the
minimum required, were engaged in the activity and provided elaborate formal peer-
reviews analysing their classmates’ productions.
From the reflections on the BookTuber project that the students were asked to include
in the conclusions of their course portfolio, it can be inferred that the project was consid-
ered a challenging yet fun activity as confirmed in the following comments:

‘I have seen that recording yourself with a camera might be easy, but it is hard to catch the
viewer’s attention’ (Student 1).

‘Moreover, I enjoyed the BookTuber activity since I really love the world of books, and I had
even more fun watching my classmates’ videos’ (Student 2).

‘My best contribution to this subject is the BookTuber book tag video I did, since I really like
the story behind the video and the recording of said video’ (Student 3).

‘On the other hand, I consider that my worst contribution has been “The BookTuber video”
since I think I could have recorded it in a better way. For example, aspects such as lighting, the
camera frame and my body position’ (Student 4).
8 RELC Journal 00(0)

While Student 1 and 4 had opposite experiences regarding the technical quality of their
videos, Student 3 did not seem to have any issues with the recording itself. In contrast,
she actually enjoyed the experience and the process of making the video. Student 2, in
addition, shows that the experience was engaging because of the topic tackled and
because she had the chance to watch her classmates’ videos, which were on issues she
was interested in, while Student 1 was concerned that she could not engage with
viewers.
Even though an overall positive feeling was reflected in the students’ portfolios, this
project also had some limitations. While most video productions were notable and even
considered outstanding, a few students did not reach the minimum standards in terms of
image and sound quality in their productions. Comments in the students’ portfolios also
expressed some concern regarding how to entertain, persuade, and engage the viewer.
Some students did not consider they had mastered this aspect, even though for the most
part, it was generally achieved. More emphasis could also have been placed on the
description of the videos in the YouTube platform as some students gave their video
vague titles such as ‘BookTuber’ or did not write a description for them, obliging the
viewer to play the video even if it was not a topic they were interested in and thus dem-
onstrating a lack of consideration for the viewer’s needs (Cassany, 2012). The students
kept an informal, conversational style in their comments, but no further interaction fol-
lowed despite additional informal interventions from the teacher in all the videos. These
interventions hardly received any reaction from the video authors either. This chal-
lenged the arousal of some ‘affinity space’ (Gee, 2004) where students could have fur-
ther developed their communicative competence online. Nevertheless, this lack of
interaction could also be due to two reasons: first, the asynchronous nature of YouTube
comments (Herring, 2013) and, second, the compulsory nature of YouTube comments
requested as part of the project. As no further interaction was a requirement, the stu-
dents might not have considered it necessary or worth spending more time on it
(Gabilondo, 2012).

Future Pedagogical Directions

The authors believe that most students seemed to have enjoyed making their videos and
successfully displayed and developed their critical skills regarding not only their own
work but also that of their classmates with their formal and informal peer-reviews in the
course e-portfolio. However, while both the teacher’s and students’ evaluation of the
engagement quality of the video was generally positive, it seems that some of the stu-
dents were highly critical of their own performance in this regard. This may have been
different if supervision from the teacher had been given before shooting the video and to
reassure the doubtful students that their work was on track. Furthermore, more emphasis
in class could have been given on aspects of settings, such as description, labelling and
titles as well as greater focus on sound quality, lighting and image.
In order to foster a stronger sense of reader community on YouTube, perhaps more
unstructured comments could also have been allowed as opposed to asking students to
follow a guideline. Such an approach may have resulted in more genuine engagement.
Engagement could also be enhanced through the choice of works or books. In an ESP
Suárez and González Argüello 9

course, engagement could be more productive and perhaps even more formative, if the
choice of books or topics were narrowed down or negotiated beforehand considering the
students’ academic needs or professional or creative interests. This may also have led to
an increase in the number of YouTube comments, making this aspect more suitable for
an ESP course, rather than presenting or analysing any book of the students’ choice with-
out any guided instruction. Despite its flaws, the students seem to have both enjoyed and
learned from this project, and they certainly displayed their critical skills towards their
own work and that of their classmates’ with their formal and informal peer-reviews.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments on previous versions
of this article as well as Dr Anne Zanatta for proofreading the draft manuscript. This Innovation in
Practice was carried out under the umbrella of the Teaching Innovation project ‘Aprenentatge
mòbil en el desenvolupament de la competència plurilingüe en comunitats d’aprenentatge’.

Funding
The author(s) acknowledge funding from Projecte d’Innovació i Millora de la Qualitat Docent
(Ajuts a la Millora de la Qualitat Docent) de la Universitat de Barcelona (2018PID-UB/027).

ORCID iD
Ma del Mar Suárez https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1741-7596

Notes
1. BookTuber vlog in standardized video formats and structures within their community
(Sorensen and Mara, 2014), such as book hauls, To-Be-Read, unboxings, bookshelf tours, tag
videos and cross-promotion, amongst others.
2. A compilation of the teaching materials of this Innovation in Practice experience can be
retrieved from http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/handle/2445/128429 (Suárez, 2018).
3. In the media world, a ‘(video) super’ is any text or graphic that appears on screen during a
video presentation. ‘Super’ is abbreviated from ‘superimposed’, i.e. the text superimposed on
the top of the visual display.

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