"So much for literary democracy": Journalistic Capital and the Influence and Reception of Scandal Surrounding the Not The Booker Prize on Social Media PDF Free Download
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Biography
Lore De Greve
Lore De Greve studied English and German Linguistics and Literature at Ghent University
and Literary Studies at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). In 2019, she was a project
collaborator on the ERC project Constructing Age for Young Readers (“CAFYR”) at the
University of Antwerp. She is currently working as a doctoral researcher at Ghent
University on the research project ‘Evaluation of literature by professional and layperson
critics. A digital and literary sociological analysis of evaluative talk of literature through
the prism of literary prizes (2007-2017)”, supervised by Prof. Gunther Martens, Prof. Daan
Vandenhaute, Prof. Henk Roose, Prof. Lars Bernaerts and Prof. Veronique Hoste and
funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen). Her research focuses
on the perceptions of readers by means of a digitally empowered method of literary
sociology, drawing on a broad corpus of critical discourse generated by six literary prizes
in three different linguistic communities.
Twitter handle: @degrevelore
e-mail: lore.de.greve@telenet.be
website: www.talklitmining.ugent.be
Gunther Martens
Gunther Martens is Professor of Modern German Literature at Ghent University and co-
director of the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities (GhentCDH). He studied linguistics
and literature at the Universities of Ghent, Antwerp and Eichstätt. He has written a widely
acclaimed monograph on the rhetorical and narratological aspects of German literary
modernism and has published other books as well as articles that have appeared in journals
such as Style, Modern Austrian Literature, Recherches Germaniques, Orbis Litterarum,
Neophilologus, Language and Literature, and others. In addition to this, he is the Honorary
President of the European Narratology Network and a board member of the International
Robert Musil Society. Furthermore, he is also an editorial board member of several
journals, namely Authorship, Frontiers of Narrative Studies, CLW, Alexander Kluge
Jahrbuch and the book series Musil-Studien (Fink Verlag).
Twitter handle: @degrevelore
e-mail: gunther.martens@telenet.be
website: www.talklitmining.ugent.be
“So much for literary democracy”: Journalistic Capital and the Influence
and Reception of Scandal Surrounding the Not The Booker Prize on Social
Media1
Lore De Greve and Gunther Martens
Keywords: literary criticism, literary prizes, social media, digital humanities, reception,
layperson criticism, journalistic capital
Literary prizes, which increasingly garner scholarly attention (Auguscik 2017; Sapiro 2016;
English 2009; Borghardt, Maass, and Pontzen 2020; Ducas 2013), function as traditional
literary gatekeepers and contribute to the institutionalised consecration of literary texts.
However, the landscape of literary prizes has been subject to tremendous change in recent
years. Whereas a limited number of literary (oeuvre) prizes used to bestow a lot of
economic/symbolic capital and visibility, or “journalistic capital” (English 2002), the arrival
of Web 2.0. and online review platforms/communities has opened up the public sphere and
intensified the penchant for scandal inherent in any type of public selection. In addition, the
authority of expert juries appears to increasingly compete with the “wisdom of the cloud”.
According to Franzen, there is a visible emancipation of the audience, especially on social
media, blogs or comment sections of newspapers (Franzen 2021, 4). Due to the rise of social
media, digitalisation has led to a democratisation of the public sphere, home to what Jenkins
calls a participatory culture (Jenkins 2006), leading to the emergence of a “community-
driven” literary criticism. On the one hand, this development has frequently been criticised,
for example by professional critics such as Sigrid Löffler, Moritz Baßler and Heinz Drügh
(Baßler 2021; Baßler and Drügh 2021; Löffler 2017). The latter two are critical of the
growing number of readers' reviewers and question their capacity for critical thinking, their
qualifications and intelligence:
die neue Medienlandschaft [ermöglicht] auch hier den Zusammenschluss von
Gemeinschaften, die ihre Auffassung der Dinge ohne besondere Qualifikation der
Allgemeinheit anmuten [...] [Urteile] erfolgreich zu fällen, erfordert allein, dass man
1 Sections of this article originate from the, at the time of writing yet unpublished, manuscript of Lore De Greve’s
doctoral dissertation and will be published there as well in the future.
den Gruppencode trifft, sonst aber keine weiteren Qualifikationen, nicht einmal die
Beherrschung basaler Orthografie (Baßler and Drügh 2021, 151–52)
On the other hand, the phenomenon may be seen as interesting by others just because it
“represent[s] a form of non-elite reception” (Allington 2016, 258).
For his examination of literary prizes, James English draws on Bourdieu’s capital and
field theory (English 2009, 8). Though Bourdieu touches upon the influence of visibility
and journalistic attention, the concept of a media-centred type of capital in addition to
Bourdieu’s economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital, the so called “capital
journalistique”, was introduced by Patrick Champagne (Champagne 2000). English
examined the function of journalistic capital in the context of cultural awards and counts
journalistic capital as a supplementary factor in the context of cultural awards related to a
prize’s visibility, notability as well as scandal (English 2002). He deems scandal the perfect
device “to mak[e] things happen on the field of culture” (English 2009, 190), citing
Bourdieu in claiming it as the “instrument par excellence of symbolic action” (Bourdieu
and Haacke 1995, 84). In The Economy of Prestige, he confirms the importance of scandal
to generate attention and visibility for a cultural award:
When someone whispers a scandalous bit of backroom gossip to the press, the scandal
of the “leak” is often given more play than its ostensible substance. This capacity on
the part of commentators to cast the very fact of a scandal as itself a scandal—and
thereby to layer scandal upon scandal, implicating all sides of a dispute—is an
increasingly significant feature of the awards scene. (English 2009, 194–95)
The actual content of the scandal matters less in comparison to the enormous effect it can
have on an award’s coverage in the media, increasing its visibility and labelling it as a “hot
topic”. Because of this, he considers scandal, its threat and promise, to be constitutive of all
cultural awards (English 2002, 113). For authors, refusing a prize has become an
established way of demanding attention and visibility (English 2002, 121). The prizes
themselves thus depend on journalistic capital, but also bestow it themselves, lending
visibility to works and authors by acknowledging them. An accumulation of journalistic
capital, of attention, can not only be convertible into symbolic capital in the form of prestige,
it can actively accelerate its growth (English 2009, 208).
Long-standing, prestigious prizes like the (Man) Booker Prize are usually able to defy
the public opinion. But what challenge does bad publicity pose for a prize which relies
almost exclusively on both input of the audience and journalistic capital? As a case study,
this article will focus on the 2012 edition of the audience-geared Not The Booker Prize
(NTBP), a democratic counterprize created and awarded by The Guardian in 2009 in order
to oppose the obscure selection process of the Man Booker Prize. Officially, winners receive
nothing but a “The Guardian”-mug. While thus relatively low in both symbolic and
economic capital, this rival prize has generated a lot of media attention and impact by
relying on The Guardian’s platform and journalistic capital. Besides nominating and voting
in the newspaper’s comment section, the audience also discusses the prize on social media,
like Twitter.2 During the 2012 edition, a contender’s behaviour and back-room negotiations
scandalised organisers and audience alike and was contested on social media. In the
following sections, we will discuss the nature of the Not The Booker Prize, sketch the
scandal and study the figure of the layperson critic as an additional literary gatekeeper on
social media by examining the Twitter discourse surrounding the scandal as well as the
subsequent changes made to the architecture of the prize. For this purpose, we shall analyse
the tweets created in the immediate wake of the scandal to gain insight into the content of
the user-generated literary criticism.
With the rise of social media, the academic interest in the relationship between literary
awards and the reception on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads,
LovelyBooks etc., has increased. In her chapter on the discussion of literary prizes on
Twitter and the circulation of social capital this particular information exchange and
personal communication may grant the Twitter-users, Beth Driscoll counts literary prizes
as one of increasingly influential phenomena which forms, together with social media, one
of the ”rapid changes that characterise publishing in the twenty-first century”, both of which
“draw together participants from multiple areas of literary culture”(Driscoll 2013, 103).
Driscoll finds that by discussing a literary award on a social media platform like Twitter,
users are able to “appropriate its cultural authority, media status and economic power”
(Driscoll 2013, 119), building connections, however brief they may initially be, with other
2 This past year, there have been several changes after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform previously known
as Twitter, now renamed X. However, in the course of this article, we will consistently refer to it as Twitter, tweets
etc. as these were the correct terms during the examined reference period.
users, authors, publishers etc. that have the potential to become a lasting network, thus
converting into social capital. The online critics thus form an important link in the chain of
the reception of prizes, as we will illustrate in our own analysis. While there is a large body
of research on the prize that inspired (in a positive or negative sense) the very creation of
the NTBP: The Booker Prize, only limited attention has been paid to the online reception of
this globally most prominent literary prize. Paremeswaran et al. (2022) examined the
reception of the shortlisted novels on Twitter employing both topic modelling and sentiment
analysis in order to predict a potential winner that would be embraced by the crowds. In
order to achieve this objective, they used Machine Learning. They first collected the tweets
pertaining to the books that were shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2018, 2019 and 2020,
though they remain vague as to how the relevant data was selected. They combined Topic
Modelling with Sentiment Analysis, using Naive Bayes and Logistic regression algorithms
to train the system on 1,6 million tweets. Similar to our own approach, these were then
categorised as either "positive" or "negative".3 However, they decided to focus on sentence-
level sentiment, whereas our approach is more fine-grained and annotates sentiment at the
aspect-level (Paremeswaran, Keikhosrokiani, and Asl 2022, 246). Their system achieved a
resulting accuracy of 85,71% and they concluded that
the number of positive tweets was a good predictor of the winner for literary prize. In
the case presented here, juries only have to analyze the cluster centroids to know that
the shortlisted novel with a higher number of positive tweets can receive the literary
prize award and the shortlisted novel with the lowest number of positive tweets is
least expected to win the prize. (Paremeswaran, Keikhosrokiani, and Asl 2022, 254)
Our research and that of Paremeswaran et al. bear similarity in the analysis of the social
media discourse surrounding a literary award as well as, to a certain extent, in the employed
digital approach. Nevertheless, the focus and objective are vastly different, as in this article,
we examine the content of the “talk of literature” in the context of scandal as a whole,
instead of predicting a potential winner. Our methodology of automatically annotating
social media contributions (see dissertation) does in fact enable us, to some extent, to predict
3 (Although part of their article mentions the tweets were categorised into 3 sentiments: Paremeswaran,
Keikhosrokiani, and Asl 2022, 251)
the winner (namely the winner of the audience prize), but this question is beyond the scope
of this article.
Other researchers have also directed their research at literature (or literary prizes) and
social media. Bronwen Thomas’ Literature and Social Media (2020) examined the
phenomenon in general and explores how social media platforms can serve to connect with
or rediscover authors and their literary works, to curate the literary canon as well as to form
a playground for creative expression, in the form of so called “Twitterature” or
“Twitterfiction”. Matzner and Wieser’s research (2023a; 2023b), on the other hand, focuses
specifically on the online audiences that engage with the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis on
social media platforms. Meanwhile, our own research has focused on the literary evaluation
by a literary award’s professional jury and on social media platforms, such as Twitter,
Instagram and Goodreads, through the prism of literary prizes. In “#Bookstagram and
Beyond” (De Greve and Martens 2021a), we presented our preliminary findings regarding
the online depiction and discussion of the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Prize. We examined the
2019 Twitter discourse surrounding this prize in detail employing annotation and Aspect-
Based Sentiment Mining (De Greve and Martens 2022b), and supplemented our results with
an examination of both the Instagram-posts and official jury discussions (De Greve and
Martens 2022a). Furthermore, we have also studied the impact of multiple literary prizes
on the reception of the nominated books by exploring Goodreads reviews and ratings (De
Greve and Martens 2021b). The abovementioned research constitutes just a sample of the
studies that address literature and social media, but they illustrate both the increase in
academic interest in the research topic as well as the use of digital tools to explore it.
Presenting the Prize: A Peculiar Paragon of Popular Preference
Contrary to the more prominent and acclaimed (Man) Booker Prize, the Not The Booker
Prize (NTBP) is not as well-known, internationally, and has so far remained below the radar
pertaining to the academic research about literary prizes. Although sometimes briefly
mentioned as a fait-divers in publications about an author or literary work which was
nominated or awarded the prize, at the moment of writing no in-depth analysis of this prize
is available thus far.4 To this day, the prize is not even mentioned on the newspaper’s
Wikipedia page, let alone having its own page.5
James English argues that the power granted to cultural functionaries assists in the
bureaucratisation of art, inevitably resulting in the “alternative prizes sponsored by hostile
counter-groups” (English 2009, 52). The Not The Booker Prize was one such independent
counterprize that was created and organised by the newspaper The Guardian. The Guardian
is a left-leaning newspaper of record in the UK,6 whose readers are defined as “left-wing,
liberal, and politically correct” (‘Guardian Reader Definition and Meaning | Collins English
Dictionary’ 2023). As a consequence, this political orientation will inevitably shape the
competition itself, the long- and shortlist, as well as determine the average audience that is
reached by features pertaining to the prize. The Not The Booker was a joint idea and effort
of two Guardian-journalists, namely Sam Jordison, who is responsible for The Guardian's
reading group and is the co-director of Galley Beggar Press, as well as freelance writer
Richard Lee, both of whom mostly write articles and reviews on book-related subjects.
The Not The Booker was specifically created to challenge and counter the (Man) Booker
Prize’s distant judging panel and mysterious deliberations (Jordison 2009a). In his book
blog post “Announcing the Not The Booker Prize prize”, Jordison mentions the need for an
alternative book prize, as “[t]he judges of Britain's most prestigious literary award [i.e. the
(Man) Booker Prize] pick the wrong book far too often” (Jordison 2009a). Though
humorous in tone and self-aware of the clichés surrounding layperson criticism regarding
prestigious awards, he nevertheless confirms the interest in and need to compare the
“wisdom of the blogging crowd” with the traditional judging panel.
On the one hand, the new prize was conceptualised as a form of democratisation, giving
the readers of The Guardian a book prize of their own, one whose process they could
participate in themselves. On the other hand, the main goals also allude to transparency:
opening up the prize and laying bare all those aspects that are usually safeguarded behind
4 Exc. our own publications on the topic.
5 At the time of writing, the 18th of September 2023.
6 A “newspaper of record” signifies that the newspaper in question has an extensive circulation and is considered
to be a major and well-respected, authoritative and independent national paper.
closed doors, such as the selection process and jury discussions. Consequently, the
organisers wished to create the ultimate transparent audience award and this is reflected in
the prize’s architecture: using the newspaper’s comment section, each reader was allowed
to nominate a book for the (consequently usually very long) longlist, vote for the shortlist
of (usually) six books and, at last, for a winner. Retaining the connection to and confirming
the rivalry with its namesake, the Not The Booker adopted similar entry criteria as the ones
employed by the Booker, with a few exceptions, namely that anyone could vote, that genre
or style did not dictate eligibility and that there is no entry limit per publisher. As Jordison
stated: “Any genre at all. Any style. If you want to nominate Jeffrey Archer, you can. We
won't like it, but we will lump it. If you want to nominate yourself, you can probably do
that too” (Jordison 2009a).
At the end of the competition, the book with most audience votes would win a Guardian
mug. As such, unlike the rather valuable Man Booker Prize, there is no direct economic
capital to be gained in the form of prize money. Furthermore, due to the audience-geared
and genre-friendly nature of this rival prize, as well as its novelty, the prestige it bestows
on nominees is somewhat limited in comparison to other prizes which are awarded by a
vested professional jury consisting of established critics, authors etc. or by a prestigious
institution such as an academy. However, despite the limited amounts of economic and
symbolic capital, being nominated or winning the prize still coincides with increased
publicity, which may result in higher sales numbers and indirectly increase economic
capital. Due to the journalistic capital of The Guardian and because of the openness of its
online comment section, the Not The Booker has been generating a lot of media attention
and impact. Firstly, it uses the platform provided by The Guardian itself, publishing
multiple articles on the prize, as well as extracts and detailed reviews of the shortlisted
books. Secondly, the organisers encourage the discussion on social media, such as Twitter.
Whereas many literary prizes are often dependent on other media, such as public
broadcasting or newspapers to pick up on and report about the prize to a wider audience,
the Not The Booker is able to rely on its own platform and has the benefit of already having
access to its target audience. Consequently, this specific prize relies on and predominantly
awards journalistic capital or, as Daniel D’Addario neatly summarises: “’Not the Booker’
is an honor that is, in practical terms, entirely theoretical. (In terms of publicity, it’s not so
theoretical.)”(D’Addario 2012).
Sketching the Scandal: Conspicuous Canvassing and Coercion when Campaigning
According to James English, every new (literary) prize is already scandalous by virtue of
its existence, “[t]he question is simply whether it will attract enough attention for this latent
scandalousness to become manifest in the public sphere” (English 2009, 192). This is
certainly true for the NTBP, which experienced hiccups from the onset. There was some
confusion surrounding the nomination process for the longlist and the legitimacy of some
shortlist votes (Jordison 2009d; 2009c; 2009b). Indeed, Jordison himself declared that
“[c]learly, there was a lot of vote ... rigging is the wrong word, but it's obvious that people
who haven't read any of the books in question have been voting and encouraged to vote by
vested interests” (Jordison 2009e). In the evaluation of the first edition of the prize, Sarah
Crown discussed the strengths and hurdles of the prize, commenting on the fact that the
discourse in the comment sections dwelled as much on the prize and process as it did on the
books themselves, debating vote-rigging and/or canvassing, skewed results and backroom
maneuvering: “There's a reason, perhaps,” she claims, “why juries generally operate behind
closed doors” (Crown 2009). One difficulty was caused by the inability to verify whether
readers had followed the rules by only casting a single vote and lack of stipulations. A
second problem was the double position of Jordison as both an independent reviewer and
overseer of the entire operation. Even the winner, Rana Dasgupta, was not entirely
appreciative of the prize, calling the proceeding depressing and chaotic whilst lamenting
the flood of conspiracy theories (Lea 2009). In spite of this, he nonetheless looks back on it
a bit more positively, claiming he would appreciate the continuation of the price provided
some adjustments to its set-up as a valuable “counterpoint to the exclusive nature of most
literary awards”, since he disagrees with the idea that “you shouldn't ask the general public
[about literature] because they won't behave” (Lea 2009).
In 2010, the terms and conditions changed slightly, allowing only 5 books to be chosen
for the shortlist, and deciding that commenters’ votes for the shortlist would only be deemed
legitimate if the commenters had previously taken part in the earlier discussions of the prize,
providing the link for at least one such comment in their vote/review, in order to “avoid the
kind of late-breaking tsunami of votes that so discombobulated us last time” (Jordison
2010a). Despite attempts to smooth the course of the edition, however, due to high amounts
of first-time commenters, Jordison and the others decided to do a recount by letting people
vote between the initial shortlist and a list of “books that seemed to be doing well in a rather
less shouty, just registered-to-vote kind of way” (Jordison 2010b), a move which led to such
controversy, the organisers asked commenters to “call of the hounds” in the follow-up
article (Jordison 2010c).
This reflected Jordison’s concerns regarding the use of social networking sites by authors
to encourage people to vote for their long- or shortlisted title. Although he feared that the
list reflected which authors were best at canvassing votes instead of reflecting the quality
of the selected work in question, he also stressed that, usage of social media platforms aside,
this type of behaviour and book promotion was hardly new and relativised the actions of
the authors (Jordison 2010b). Nevertheless, in a subsequent article that announced the
winners (Jordison 2010d), he concluded that “for better or worse, the Not The Booker prize
has long since ceased to be a literary competition. As the ever-eloquent deadgod [=
username of an online commenter] put it during the vote last night: ‘The Not contest seems
to be a social-network wrangling contest.’” Social media platforms thus play an important
role in the online discussion of the prize as well as the promotion of the books by their
respective writers. The following year, controversy reared its head when Cody James, one
of the shortlistees, decided to withdraw her novel The Dead Beat from the competition.
James and her publisher had nothing but praise for Jordison and his initiative, but blamed
the hostile online environment and the comments that were “immature at best, deliberately
hurtful at worst” (@eightcutsgallery 2011). But the controversy is not always caused by the
comment section or social media contributions.
Throughout the first years of the prize, there organisers were quite welcoming of the
scandal, seemingly living by the adagio that there is no such thing as bad publicity. But the
2012 run of the prize lead to a major scandal that ultimately forced the prize to change its
modalities. The scandal started with a post by a certain HethaJane7 in the comment section
of the article calling for the final vote on the 14th of October 2012, at 12:44 pm
(@HethaJane 2012a). In this rather short and somewhat cryptic post, HethaJane
emphasised that one of the contenders, Ben Myers, was not published by a big
multinational, but a small indie publisher, and claimed that other information that had been
suggested elsewhere was in fact incorrect. A few hours later, at 14:39 pm Sam Jordison
7 Presumably Hetha Jane Duffy, co-founder of the aforementioned Bluemoose Books.
tweeted that “[t]here have been exciting developments on the #NotTheBooker today. Dearie
me...” (Sam Jordison [@samjordison] 2012b). Ed Wilson, a literary agent, reacted a few
minutes later, asking for more information - “What what what?” (Ed Wilson
[@literarywhore] 2012) – to which Jordison vaguely, but enthusiastically replied (Sam
Jordison [@samjordison] 2012a): “@BenMyers1 has tweeted about it... More tomorrow!
Scandal!” The tone and phrasing of Jordison’s tweets suggest that he was appreciative of
the initial stages of this scandal. It was represented as exciting and he employed Twitter to
increase this tension and excitement. (Fig. 1 here)
At 16:45 pm, HethaJane posted a follow-up in The Guardian’s comment section
shedding more light on the matter at hand (@HethaJane 2012b). In this new post, HethaJane
shared part of an e-mail that was sent by another contender, Ewan Morrison, who appealed
to people to vote for him. He claimed that he was in dire need of their support, since he was
published by a small publisher whereas his mysterious adversary (most likely Ben Myers)
was – according to him – published by a big publishing house, which is a lie. (Fig. 2 here)
About half an hour later, HethaJane shared the entire e-mail by Morrison in the comment
section (@HethaJane 2012c). In his e-mail, Morrison not only lied about the status of Ben
Myers’ publishing house and the withdrawal of all other competitors, but also canvassed
for votes, even supplying his addressees with a review they could adjust or copy in order to
vote. He explicitly demeaned the voting process of the NTBP as well, claiming that it is
“farcical”, “horrible, and boring and no democracy could ever be based on [it]”.
Furthermore, he expressed the plan to “denounce the stupid voting by internet process and
ask that next year they get a panel of people who understand and study books to be the
judges” in case he would win. Rather ironically, it was in fact this “voting by Internet” that
enabled him to canvass votes and rig the system, thus allowing him to be nominated,
whereas his preferred panel of professional critics was not responsible for his nomination.
Sam Jordison replied to HethaJane’s comment and confirmed that he was aware of the
issue (@samjordison 2012a). He also mocked and openly disapproved of Morrison’s
behaviour. Some commenters disagreed with Jordison, calling HethaJane’s sharing of the
e-mail “underhand” and defending Morrison’s plea for votes and his opinion on the NTBP,
after which Jordison stressed that the contents of the mail (e.g. the lie concerning Myers)
were the problem, not the fact that Morrison sent out e-mails asking to vote (@samjordison
2012b; @ourumwelt 2012; @LornaS 2012; @myrtle1 2012). (Fig. 3 here)
The next day, Jordison posted the article that announced the winner of the NTBP: Ewan
Morrison with Tales from the Mall. Jordison, however, also took the chance to expose all
that had happened, starting with sharing Morrison’s e-mail in full and pointing out the
untruths it contained and sharing their continued e-mail conversation. This revealed that 1)
Morrison had given out Jordison’s e-mail address and asked his friends to repeatedly
message him,8 2) there had been several other unspecified “faux pas”, 3) assuming Morrison
to be ashamed and embarrassed by being exposed, Jordison gave him the opportunity to
withdraw and “save yourself a bit of embarrassment tomorrow” (Jordison 2012b). To this
mail, Morrison responded with three successive e-mails, also shared by Jordison. In the
first, he thanked Jordison for his reply and denies any embarrassment. In the second, he
reacts to Jordisons offer to help him out by threatening him, saying that he has “‘friends’
counting votes here in Scotland” and that “if I get a sniff of unfair play”, he would contact
Jordison’s superior and the Scottish media. The third e-mail with a new subject (“if we win
this thing, all will be erased.”) is decidedly hostile in tone and contained just one line: “Sam,
Happy bunnies all will be. Understood?”.
The scandal reached oversees and Daniel D’Addario, a professional American critic,
wrote an article about it, claiming that the NTBP had “actually become Not So Different
From The Booker” by succumbing to “back-room maneuvering” and “undue politicking”
(D’Addario 2012). In addition to this, he criticised Morrison’s call for a professional jury
which would “ensure that the prize won’t be open to the madding crowd. So much for
literary democracy” (D’Addario 2012). Although the tone at the end of Jordison’s
announcement had still been relatively positive, the sense of amusement at the controversy
disappeared by the time Jordison posted a follow-up on the 17th of October, one day after
D’Addario’s criticism. He confirmed that “[s]adly, this year, the joke has turned sour” and
that the result of the competition was overshadowed by all of the drama, because of which
“it's starting to feel tired” (Jordison 2012c). Due to this, the organisers debated whether the
prize should even be continued or whether they should at the very least revise the rules.
Eventually, they put it to vote and asked the readers to choose whether the Not The Booker
Prize should continue or be put “out of its misery”. The controversy was not only discussed
within the comment section of the newspaper, but also on social media. In the following
8 This was already hinted at in the article announcing the shortlist: “Something sticks in our side. A spear? A thorn?
Another complaint from a Ewan Morrison supporter?” (Jordison 2012a).
subsection, we will analyse how the controversy was received on a social media platform,
namely Twitter.
Delving into the Data: The Results of Negative Reception
For our analysis, we decided to examine the online Twitter contributions surrounding the
scandal. We consequently collected those tweets that contained a NTBP-related query or
hashtag, starting from the 14th of October, when Hetha Jane posted her first comment, to
the 20th of October, which is when the online discussion died down.9 It might seem
counterintuitive to mine social media posts rather than the comments section of the
newspaper that hosted the literary prize. However, we decided against integrating the
comments section because the amount of moderation during the debate could not be
verified, whereas Twitter at the time was unmoderated. We collected all tweets publicly
available during this reference period and identified as contributions to the ongoing debate
by means of relevant hashtags. The corpus is rather small (44 tweets in sum), but it is
necessary to keep in mind that both social media and the Not The Booker were still very
young and the NTBP was an emerging prize at that time. Of these online contributions to
the discourse surrounding the NTBP, 25 directly or indirectly referenced the scandal. The
majority (56,82%) of the online contributions are thus concerned with what happened and
address the situation.
We closely examined the online contributions and manually labelled each of them,
annotating both aspects – the topics that are discussed – and the sentiment expressed about
them (Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis).10 The topics were divided into main categories
as well as a more detailed subcategory. The labels thus consist of both an overarching
coarse-grained designation as well as a fine-grained subdivision. We noted five main
categories, namely “Contender”, “Controversy”, “Meta”, “Prize” and “Text”. The first
9 The collected queries were “NotTheBookerPrize” and “NotTheBooker”, either with or without capitalisation of
the separate parts.
10 For more information on Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis and how we employed it for our research, please
consult following article: (De Greve et al. 2021)
pertains to the nominated authors, and has three subcategories referring to the author in
general, their behaviour as well as statements. The second category has no subcategories
and, as the name implies, involves the scandal itself. The “Meta”-category contains those
subcategories that concern the discourse surrounding the discourse regarding the prize and
its context, such as the (online) debate, references to (other) literary critics or articles about
the authors, novels or prize, including those published in The Guardian, online assessments
of other online contributions in the form of re-tweets, the organisers of the prize – be they
Sam Jordison and Richard Lee or The Guardian as organising instance – other literary prizes
and mentions of technology (e.g. links to the voting etc.) or social media in general. The
fourth category, “Prize”, may comprise references to the prize in general, to side-events
organised in the margins of the award, such as book giveaways, or to the stages of the
awarding, like the voting process, the shortlist and the resulting winner. Finally, the “Text”-
category may pertain to either the nominated novel in general or a specific copy or edition
of the book. An overview of the different categories is presented in Table I. For each of
these aspects, we also registered how it was evaluated, whether it was mentioned in a
positive, negative or neutral context.11
Overview of the Aspect Categories
Contender Behaviour
General
Statement
Controversy
Meta Debate
Gatekeeper or Press
Online Assessment
Organiser
Other Literary Prize
Technology or Social
Media
Prize Main Event
Shortlist
Side-Event
Voting
11 As we wish to examine the stance of the online critics regarding the scandal, the sentiment is a central part of
our research. The graphs included in this article thus signal how frequently a certain sentiment was expressed about
a specific aspect category . However, it is possible for both a positive and negative sentiment to be expressed about
a single aspect, e.g. “the book is interesting but a bit too much”. In this case, this example would be annotated as
both “TEXT_General:Positive” and “TEXT_General:Negative”, where the target “book” is both praised and
criticised.
Winner
Text Copy
General
Table I
It may appear curious to stick to annotation in order to analyse a smaller dataset that
could in fact be examined by means of a traditional close reading. This way of proceeding
creates some distance between the researcher and the data or material. According to
Chrisoph Reinfandt, such “techniques of ‘uncritical reading’ and ‘surface reading’ as well
as the big data of ‘distant reading’ (Moretti) prove invaluable as long as they
are not practised from an exclusively ‘postcritical standpoint’ which would surely
undermine the precarious standing of the humanities in the current climate even further”
(Reinfandt 2016, 328). In their articles pertaining to the online audience and discussion of
the Bachmannpreis, Matzner and Wieser identified the online commentators (to the greatest
possible extent). They argued that the online critics predominantly consist of people within the
literary field and that the nominated authors themselves eagerly participate in the online
discussion, emphasising their participation in the online community more than highlighting
their own literary work (Matzner and Wieser 2023a, 232). The jury members themselves
similarly participate in the online discourse. Because of this, one of the challenges of what they
defined as the self-presencing on social media is that the algorithms and personal preferences
of the users of a platform lead to a “Aufmerksamkeitshierarchie”, where some online
contributions gain more attention and traction than others, especially if they are created by
someone prominent within the context of the literary award (Matzner and Wieser 2023a, 234).
The advantage of our specific approach, in which all online contributions are annotated the
same way is that all of them are given the same weight in our analysis. Even if we choose to
discuss a particular tweet in more detail, the data presented in the bar charts provides an
overview of the discourse focus as a whole. In this way, we seek to side-step the risk of falling
prey to a personal bias that pays more attention to a particular commentator's contribution due
to their position of following, for example to Sam Jordison’s own tweets.
Firstly, we shall first examine the main aspect categories, before delving into the more
detailed subcategories. We annotated 140 aspect-sentiment combinations for the 44 tweets,
coming down to an average of 3,18 combinations per tweet. The bar charts included below
represent the percentage of positive, neutral and negative mentions of each main or aspect
subcategory.12 Figure 4 shows that the online critics focused most frequently on the prize
itself (29,29%), followed closely by the “Meta”-category (28,57%), which together
comprise almost 60% of all mentions. The nominated author(s) complete the top three
(17,14%), whereas 16,43% refers explicitly to the controversy. The nominated books,
however, are not discussed as frequently and only consist of 8,57%. As a consequence, the
focus is not on the literary works that were nominated – their strengths and faults – but
rather on the other aspects of the literary award.
If we look at the division of sentiment across categories, we see that the majority if
mentions is neutral (42,14%), without casting a judgment on the aspect, and that the
percentage of negative value judgements is higher (34,29%) than that of positive
evaluations (23,57%). However, there are some marked differences pertaining to the
division of sentiment for the different main aspect categories. The controversy is evaluated
most negatively (10,71% negative, relative frequency of 16,43% in total), signalling that
the online critics do not approve of the scandal at all, though a small percentage is positive
(5%) and welcomes the controversy. Many of the online critics have mixed feelings about
the entire debacle and simultaneously condemn the controversy and experience a kind of
“Schadenfreude” at seeing it play out. Author Stephen May, who was shortlisted for his
novel Life! Death! Prizes!, tagged Jordison and tweeted that he had been contacted by an
American journalist and that the “[w]hole thing is hilarious. And just a bit scary” (Stephen
May [@Stephen_May1] 2012). Similarly, author Tim Hannigan shared that he was
“[e]njoying #notthebooker carnage btw but sort of hoping it's all really po-mo satirical joke.
It is, surely...” (Tim Hannigan [@Tim_Hannigan] 2012). Both Tweets express a certain
incredulity, emphasised by the statement that it must surely be some sort of joke, at what is
happening. On the one hand, they are amused at all the fuss, but they are not unaffected.
Their choice of words, such as “scary” and “carnage”, highlights the gravity of the situation.
Kevin Williamson even tweets about the entire situation as if he were a commentator
describing a sports match: “Battle 4 #NotTheBooker enters home straight. Morrison shops
4 votes but Myers plays Scottish card. Could be tighter than a midges chuff Jim” (Kevin
Williamson [@williamsonkev] 2012). Taking over the lingo of such a sports commentator
(“tighter than a midges chuff Jim”) while commenting on the behaviour of the main
12 The percentages are calculated by dividing the absolute frequency of each aspect-sentiment combination by the
total of combinations and are rounded to two decimals after the comma.
competitors and adversaries puts the scandal in a humoristic light. However, framing it as
a “battle” also emphasises the serious nature of what is happening as well as the animosity
between the two authors. This is also the aspect category with the smallest share of neutral
mentions, which implies that it evokes strong emotions and divides the audience. The
Twitter-users actively condemn what is happening. The prize itself appears to be negatively
impacted by the scandal and is equally frequently criticised as mentioned neutrally
(12,14%). Even though they participate in the award, the online critics do not necessarily
approve of the Not The Booker. Such references to the aspects excluding a value judgement
are frequently informative statements. The “Meta”-category, on the other hand, usually
occurs in a neutral context (17,14%) and has a low share of negative evaluations. There are
no negative sentiments expressed about the nominated titles, however, only positive
(3,57%) or neutral statements (5%). (Fig. 4 here)
Looking at the division of sentiment pertaining to the “Prize”-subcategories, Figure 5
shows that the largest percentage of mentions concern the prize in general (13,57%),
followed by both references to the voting process and the winner (6,43% each). The NTBP
itself receives far more criticism than praise, with a share of 7,86% evaluations being
negative. This suggests that the negative value judgement pertaining to the scandal reflects
badly on the prize. Johnathan Ruppin, founder of the Ruppin Agency for writers, for
example, interpreted the scandal as “[p]roof that @GuardianBooks should stick to First
Book Award and let daft #NottheBooker circus die quietly” (Jonathan Ruppin
[@ruppinagency] 2012). His judgement of the Not The Booker questions the prize’s value,
ridiculing it and expressing the hope that it will disappear. Others express their doubt with
regards to how the prize functions, its framework. Russ Litten, is astounded and dissatisfied
by the reward given to the winner: “Is that all you get? A frigging mug? #NotTheBooker”
(Russ Litten [@RussLitten] 2012). (In a massive study on the more than 850 literary prizes
awarded on a yearly basis in the German-speaking context, Maaß and Borghardt note that,
apart from some well-known oeuvre prizes, the prize money tends to correlate with the
importance foundations and organisations attribute to promoting specific values, rather than
with literary quality. (Maaß and Borghardt 2022)) Another online critic is not entirely
convinced of the validity of the selection process: “@samjordison The short list should be
drawn from a tombola, the winner decided by arm-wrestling and a bake-off. #notthebooker”
(Hughes. [@I_Am_Hughes] 2012). The latter tweet also calls into question the value of the
value judgment and suggests that such arbitrary procedures as a tombola or arm-wrestling,
which have no consideration whatsoever for the literary value of a nominated work, would
still be better than the current procedure. The voting process, on the other hand, is usually
discussed in a neutral way (5%), and consists of informative statements reporting on the
process, e.g. stating which author was endorsed by the online critic and encouraging others
to vote: “I voted for @BenMyers1 Pig Iron to win #NottheBooker. You can too (if you read
and liked it of course) […]” (@afictionhabit 2012) The Twitter-users seem divided with
regards to the winner, Ewan Morrison, some are satisfied (2,14%), but a slightly larger
percentage is displeased (2,86%). We can conclude that the scandal therefore appears to
affect the audience’s opinion on the prize more than their evaluation of the winner. The
side-events (book giveaways) and shortlist are only discussed in a neutral or negative
context respectively. In general, the sentiment voiced by the audience varies considerably.
Author Steve Mosby was delighted and amused because of the scandal, deeming it
entertaining: “laughing so hard” and “brilliant!” (Steve Mosby [@stevemosby] 2012b;
2012a). Contrary to this, novelist Isabel Costello conveys a disdain for both the scandal
itself and by extension the prize, calling Morrison’s win a “pyrrhic victory” that has reduced
the NTBP to nothing but a “farce” (Isabel Costello [@isabelcostello] 2012). (Fig. 5 here)
Moving on to the “Meta”-category, the professional critics and articles regarding the
prize, nominated authors and titles are mentioned most frequently (12,86%). The second
place is taken by the organiser(s) of the NTBP (6,43%). Both the newspaper articles or
reviews by Jordison or other professional critics regarding the books and prize as well as
the online assessments of the award’s run in tweets are predominantly referred to without
expressing an explicit opinion about them (11,43% and 2,14%).13 In the following tweet by
author Rachel Hore, the URL to Jordison’s article (in bold) is added at the end in order to
provide information, but is not itself commented upon: “Discover new authors with the 'Not
the Booker' prize: The winner via @guardian #books #notthebooker
http://guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/15/not-the-booker-prize-ewan-
morrison?newsfeed=true” (Rachel Hore [@Rachelhore] 2012) Someone
interested is able to read the article, but there is no explicit evaluation tied to it. The other
13 Though it could be argued that the simple fact of using them as a reference already expresses approval and
agreement.
mentions are positive. In neither case does the audience express criticism, which implies
that they only share those opinions with which theirs concurs. The debate in the comment
section, however, e.g. some of the reactions to Hetha Jane’s post, is criticised. Zoe Lambert
explained that she had “just read all the comments on #notthebooker and it has really given
me a new appreciation for The Booker Prize itself” (Zoe Lambert [@ZoeFLambert] 2012).
The comment section have not left a favourable impression. Her negative comparison of
the Not The Booker to the Man Booker Prize, is a recurring theme of conversation in these
tweets. Inspired by the Booker and designed to improve on its obscure selection process,
several online critics find that it does not live up to its promise. Jonathan Gibs, for example,
questions whether “the #notthebooker prize [is] just there to make the @ManBookerPrize
look good?” (Jonathan Gibbs [@Tiny_Camels] 2012). Interestingly, the audience’s
negative assessment of the controversy, and by extension the prize itself, does not seem to
extend – to the same degree at least – to the organiser(s). Instead they are mostly mentioned
in a neutral (2,86%) or positive context (2,14%). Max Dunbar, for example, expresses his
sympathy for “poor” Sam Jorison , as he laments that the NTBP has become “vicious
politicised mess”, because Morrison “has lost his mind” (Max Dunbar [@MaxDunbar1]
2012a). Although he is stern in the face of the scandal and Morrison’s behaviour, he does
not lay the blame at Jordison’s feet, but rather portrays him as a victim of the controversy.
The references to other literary prizes, on the other hand, notably the Man Booker Prize, to
which the NTBP forms a counterprize, are either praised or criticised in comparison to its
more democratic counterpart. (Fig. 6 here)
Finally, we shall examine the mentions of the nominated authors and books (Figure 7).
The online discussion remains rather superficial with regards to the novels. There are only
positive and/or neutral mentions for the two subcategories, and the audience does not delve
into the qualities of said books. Instead they only mention the physical appearance or edition
of a specific copy (2,14% in total, all neutral) or the book in general (6,43% in total, 3,57%
positive and 2,86% neutral). Several of the mentions pertain to Bluemoose’s giveaway of
five signed copies of Pig Iron.14 This sentiment of neutrality or of acclamatory attitude do
not apply to the nominated authors. Most references pertain to the authors in general
(11,43%), but they also mention their behaviour (4,29%) and statements they gave (1,43%).
14 E.g., „You've got till 6pm to RT #NottheBooker #giveaway: we have 5 signed copies of Pig Iron by
@BenMyers1 to give away. Names out of a hat at 6pm“ (Bluemoose Books [@Ofmooseandmen] 2012).
In those cases, in which their evaluation of the statements is comparable to that of the
nominated titles, the Twitter-users have rather mixed feelings about the contenders,
particularly their behaviour. Most of the mentions of the nominated authors in general are
neutral (6,43%), for example comprising informative statements that also mention which
authors are still in the running. They are otherwise criticised more frequently than praised.
In the context of this edition of the NTBP, all references to the behaviour of the nominated
authors pertains to Morrison’s actions. The bar chart illustrates that most Twitter-users
denounce Morrison’s behaviour (3,57%). A single Twitter-user defends Morrison’s actions,
saying that he was right in canvassing for votes and accusing the organisers of “demonising”
this practice, whilst portraying the prize as a “stupid, X-Factor contest” (Ilana Fox [@Ilana]
2012), thus questioning its credibility and literary value. Although Ilana Fox was the only
one to explicitly approve of Morrison’s conduct, she was not the only one to celebrate his
victory. Rachael Kerr, editor at Unbound, postulated, for example, that Tales from the Mall
was indeed “the clear winner” because people liked it, and dismissed the assumed influence
of his actions by saying that this was the “End of.” the discussion (Rachael Kerr
[@rachael_kerr] 2012). The others expressed their horror at Morrison’s actions and
expressed their support and sympathy to Jordison. Author Kathleen Jones asked who else
was “horrified by EM's behaviour” (Kathleen Jones [@kathy_jones12] 2012) and Max
Dunbar questioned whether he had indeed “lost his mind” (Max Dunbar [@MaxDunbar1]
2012a). In a follow-up tweet after the winner announcement, Dunbar also accuses Morrison
of hypocrisy: “So, @MrEwanMorrison 'won' #NotTheBooker using exact same frenetic
digital hustling he derided in his (excellent) self publishing critiques” (Max Dunbar
[@MaxDunbar1] 2012b). His use of quotation marks cast doubts on (the validity of)
Morrison’s victory and he condemns him for the “exact same frenetic digital hustling” that
the author had previously condemned in others. As demonstrated by the analysed tweets,
the online discourse was greatly impacted by the scandal and frequently dominated the
conversation. (Fig. 7 here)
Conclusion
At the end of her study, Driscoll concludes that Twitter forms “a partial snapshot of the
literary field: a window into its structuring relationships and activities” (Driscoll 2013, 118–
19). As a consequence, it is therefore relevant to examine the Twitter discourse in
concurrence with literary awards, even for smaller or up-and-coming literary awards, such
as the Not The Booker. Our analysis of the Tweets that mentioned the NTBP from the 14th
until the 20th of October (when the discussion died down), reveals that almost 60%
discussed the controversy. The greatest percentage of the mentions concerning the prize
itself, the controversy and Morrison’s behaviour was negative, whereas sentiment regarding
Jordison (and the other organisers) remained mostly neutral or positive. This illustrates that
Morrison’s actions and Jordison’s subsequent reaction are considered to reflect more
negatively on the shortlistee and, by extension, the prize itself, whilst the positive public
opinion on the organisers remains relatively unaffected.
Although the NTBP survived, the bad reception of this edition led to a series of changes
regarding the competition’s “Term & Conditions” for the following year (The Guardian
2013). The general direction of these changes reflects broader changes: Whereas initially,
online anonymity was recommended and heralded as a pathway towards positive social
change (e.g. the touting of social media’s role in the Arab springs in 2011), social media
increasingly turned to banning anonymous and pseudonymous participants reinforcing a
“real name policy” and content moderation in order to combat defamation and
disinformation. Readers of The Guardian who wanted to vote were now required to show
their personal disinvolvement and disinterestedness by writing a review for and selecting
two of the longlisted novels instead of one. In addition, an official panel of judges was
formed, selected from the commenters, which had to read at least 3 of the 6 shortlisted
novels: “The process by which these readers are chosen is left studiously vague and is at
the Guardian's discretion” (The Guardian 2013). The votes by the officially appointed
readers’ jury would outweigh those of the popular vote. In case of a tie, Jordison would
have the final vote. In her research on the politics subtending online communication, Passig
notes that platforms may initially create the impression that they democratise access to
power, but that they also may devolve into neo-feudal monarchies or even benevolent
dictatorships, because of the technological specifics of "hosting" and regulating
participation in the communication (Rolfes and Passig 2019).
There were some minor changes still in following year, but the 2012 scandal had a lasting
impact on the voting process. Due to the changes, the degree and weight of audience
participation decreased and, keeping D’Addario’s critique in mind, this ‘unofficial and
antibureaucratic counter-institution (...) become[s] part of the established institutional
landscape” (English 2009, 52). Where established, prominent literary awards may be able
to weather the storm left in the wake of the scandals their choices provoke, the same is not
the case for a small, recent literary awards which depends on and awards media attention.
In the long term, curbing the general audience’s involvement proved to be detrimental to
the NTBP, which was conceived of as an audience prize only. Bad reception thus has a
significant impact on a prize which relies on journalistic capital. In 2020, the Not The
Booker Prize was awarded for the last time, as the prize “had perhaps run its course”
(Jordison 2023), but also because of budget cuts.
The controversy surrounding the Not the Booker Prize taps into current debates about
expert cultures, deliberative democracy in the digital era and evidence-based governance.
From the angle of the publishing industry, professionals will be drawn to the conclusion
that layperson readers simply lack the expertise and know-how that authors, literary agents,
publishing editors or professional critics possess. Particularly tenacious (especially among
authors) is the belief that any type of competition, whatever its rules, is a recent offspring
of capitalism and anathema to the appreciation of art(Lamb 2013). Nevertheless,
transformations of the distribution channels for branches of artistic expression (through
streaming platforms for music, film, …) as well as the omnipresence of reviewing platforms
in all walks of life (app stores, resale platforms, online bookstores, booking websites) have
reinforced the expectation that consumers should have a more active role in the choice and
evaluation of cultural artefacts. As a consequence, the economic value of the circulation of
literary works, known for their limited print runs and subsistence on Mischkalkulation,
increasingly attaches to the ability to capture and/or predict the audience’s attention rather
than to the material product itself. Furthermore, as the analysed tweets have shown, many
of the online critics are themselves active in the literary field (broadly defined), which has
been confirmed by both Matzner and Wieser (2023a; 2023b) and by Beth Driscoll, whose
case study of the 2012 online Twitter discourse surrounding the Prime Minister’s Literary
Awards “has shown a field of participants drawn from many sectors of the literary field,
including government departments, libraries, broadcasters, editors, publishers, readers and
booksellers” (Driscoll 2013, 119).
As has been pointed out by English, the struggle and strife that attaches to openly staging
the inherently antagonistic nature of distribution struggles (Verteilungskämpfe, Habermas)
is not incidental but structural. Institutionalized players with more symbolic capital will
invariably draw on the messiness of any type of democratic deliberation in order to buttress
their appeals to pure, superior knowledge and disinterestedness. The professionals involved
in the debate were invariably bent on pointing out that lay critics are merely tools used by
authors to advance their commercial interests, at the expense of an inherently superior type
of disinterested deliberation.15 But, pace Bourdieu, the suggestion that there is such a
disinterested stance is an illusionary type of belief carefully propped up by other players
who can hide their own vested interests behind field dynamics and institutions.
Professional critics themselves are invested in the inverted economy of économie
restreinte to which they owe their position within the field. Interestingly, professional critics
will also signal a modicum of detachment from the values of the field. The professional
critic, in fact, does not want to be perceived as fully professional, because legitimate
criticism of legitimate high-brow literature is also a subjective matter, strictly individual,
based on the appreciation of a connoisseur, an act of love by a passionate amateur, rather
than an act of living up to a quantifiable, rigorous scoring system with a fixed protocol. The
15 E.g., in the panel debate on the new Dutch-language literary award, the Boon Literatuurprijs. When asked by a
member of the audience whether they believed in audience participation, Brigitte Raskin, a famous Dutch-language
writer who chaired the 2022 jury for fiction and non-fiction of the new Boon Literatuurprijs, stated that she had
negative experiences with audience-geared prizes. Raskin acted as a jury member in several editions of the Dutch
Dordtse Debutantenprijs and Academica Debutantenprijs, predecessors of the ANV Debutantenprijs, a literary
award for debut novels, for which the final vote was cast by a number of reading panels, groups and individual
readers at public libraries. According to Raskin, the public vote led to even more commercialisation, as well as to
interference by publishers. The panel was unanimous in its opinion that participation of the audience in the
decision-making is on the whole undesirable, because the audience does not possess the necessary professional
training or frame of reference to judge literary quality. (van der Haven et al. 2023) This rather conservative position
sharply contrasts with the participation paradigm in audience research and the view that a less antagonistic and
more convivial type of distributing reputation is to be found in the historical model of the (often women-led) salons
(Fuller, Sedo, and Squires 2011).
confusion cultivated by the organiser as to whether the prize was meant to be taken as
serious or not is expressive of this conundrum.
Positions within the field are also subject to temporal change: Peter Handke, the winner
of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2019, became famous by heckling and questioning the
authority of the jury members involved in the literary prize awarded by the Gruppe 47 in
1966 (See also: Döring and Schanze 2019). Though revered and canonized as an
archetypical “sixties” challenge to an authoritarian type of criticism today, the specific
intervention by this author (involving championing his own work) was as controversial as
the apparent meddling witnessed in the context of the NTBP described above. Hence, the
birth pains besetting this type of audience engagement may, in hindsight, turn out to have
paved the way for completely novel and more peaceful ways of merging professional and
cloud-driven criticism in the publishing industry and in other cultural industries, as they
have done in the instance of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize (for German literature)16 and in
the case of aggregating platforms like Rotten Tomatoes (for movies).
16 Please see our own publications on the subject: (De Greve and Martens 2021a; 2022b; 2022a).
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———. 2023. Interview with Sam Jordison on the Not The Booker Prize Interview by Lore
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———. 2012b. ‘So, @MrEwanMorrison “won” #NotTheBooker Using Exact Same
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———. 2012b. ‘There Have Been Exciting Developments on the #NotTheBooker Today.
Dearie Me...’ Tweet. Twitter.
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———. 2012b. ‘*laughing so Hard* Http://Guardian.Co.Uk/Books/2012/Oct/05/Not-
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Today. Dearie Me...’ Tweet. Twitter.
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It Is, Surely...’ Tweet. Twitter.
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