Een stille liefde. Over de lezeressen van romantische lectuur

Samenvatting

Using a national representative data set on book readers in the Netherlands, this article examines the causes and correlates of romantic fiction reading. Despite overall declines in reading during the last decades, romantic fiction has remained quite popular among Dutch women. Romantic fiction reading is particularly common among lower educated women, confirming the 'popular culture' nature of this activity. We examine why women are attracted to romantic fiction and analyze to what extent this genre is embedded in the social networks of its readers. Multivariate analyses indicate that four factors play a key role in explaining who reads romantic fiction. First, women with traditional family values read romantic fiction more often than others. Second, women who emphasize the importance of reading and literature in society are less likely to read romantic novels. Third, taste for romantic fiction is transmitted from mothers to daughters. And fourth, cultural literacy has a negative effect on romantic fiction reading. Together, these four factors explain about 60% of the correlation between education and romantic fiction reading. Finally, we show that in comparison to literature reading, the reading of romantic fiction hardly functions as part of a lower class lifestyle. Whereas literature is heavily embedded in the social circles of higher status groups, romantic fiction readers keep their interests to themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Mens en Maatschappij is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)