Reading the self: Exploring the relationship between reader identity and texts in online reader communities

This thesis presents findings from an investigation of bookstagram - a readers' community on Instagram - undertaken to assess how readers' sense of identity, including their worldview, is affected by the books they read. Its findings provide insight into the way communities form and interact on social media and highlight how the norms of bookstagram invite its members to engage in individual and collective identity-building work through reflecting on and sharing how the books they read do in fact interact with and influence their understanding of themselves and their broader worldview.