A woman reads a book at a bookstore in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province, on April 23, 2024, World Book and Copyright Day. Each year, people all over the world mark this occasion to recognize the importance of books – a link between the past and the future, a bridge between generations and across cultures. Photo: VCG
The three-day 3rd National Conference on Reading kicked off in Kunming, Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on Tuesday.
Revolving around the theme of shaping a “society that admires reading,” the year 2024’s reading conference coincided with World Book and Copyright Day. Although dubbed a “conference,” the event encompasses diverse activities such as forum discussions and digital reading campaigns. A survey report was also published, introducing data related to the Chinese public’s reading preferences.
Collecting data from people in 173 Chinese cities, the survey uncovered that the adult population in China read an average of 4.75 paperback books in 2023, while 78.3 percent of adults surveyed read on their mobile phones.
Jin Hong, a book industry analyst, told the Global Times that digital reading has been burgeoning in China, especially among young people. Reading with mobility is mostly preferred by a reader demographic, mostly made up of office workers, which is also the “core force of society.”
“They value knowledge but often lack the time for reading due to their daily responsibilities. Digital reading channels are inventions that can satisfy their cultural needs,” Jin said.
Mobile phones, tablets, audio books, online reading and even video platforms are all diverse mediums for digital reading and related activities. On Chinese Gen Z’s favorite video site Bilibili, “book”-related videos earned more than 8 million views daily in 2023.
Cultural sociologist Xu Shuming told the Global Times that readers’ common go-to digital choice is a result of the country’s growing online publishing industry, which features China’s stellar online literature.
He also said that digital channels make huge contributions to China’s nationwide reading goal.
The forum discussion “Reading and Media” was also a highlight of the Kunming conference. A total of 15 newspaper and four new media agencies across the country, including People’s Daily and China Youth Daily, discussed their role as “promoters” to boost the public’s passion for reading.
Cultural policy expert Song Weiping told the Global Times that a media report should be able to “interpret” national reading policies in different stories that cater to the daily lives of the masses.
Over the past few years, China has launched several campaigns to promote reading nationwide. “Shuxiang Zhongguo” is one major project initiated during the current 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).
The project supports large-scale annual reading events like the South China Book Festival in different regions of the country. Song told the Global Times that it defines China’s strategy of promoting nationwide reading as starting from “uniting local reading communities.”
Taking the South China Book Festival as an example, over 370 bookstores, libraries and other reading facilities in Guangdong Province participated in the fair in 2022.
Prior to Kunming, the previous two sessions of the National Conference on Reading were held in Beijing and Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province in 2022 and 2023 respectively.