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The
Impact of Amazon.com’s Reader Review
Yen-Hui Wu
Abstract
Various book reviews have been written throughout the 300
years of British and American book review history. Though these reviews
are totally different from styles and hermeneutic, they all symbolized the
knowledgeable power of the experts who influence the public readers deeply
from preference to review exposition. Book reviews enveloped in the
commercial culture by the power of experts who teach readers in a lofty
stance.
Hence, book reviews are dominated by reviewers, editors and
experts, and become knowledge possessor’s
privileges and self-rescue process. However,
book reviews are written for readers. Yet, we seldom hear the voices of
readers who have been absented in the pedigreed review history. The
appearance of the internet changed the myth of book review.
Online reader reviews have a great impact on the traditional
reviews. This study examines the reader reviews on Amazon.com and
discovers that those reader reviews are anonymous and straightforward
which caused incisive critiques.
Commercialization of knowledge, superficiality, and de-centralization has
characterized the online reader reviews. Therefore, the different
views of various culture, age, gender, education will all exist in the
internet. The personal services and interaction that Amazon.com provides
make Amazon.com not only a site, but also a learning community.
Roland Barthes declared the death of authors, whilst
Amazon.com revealed the birth of readers. Readers retrieve the rights of
reading and writing which equally provides to every human being. Online
reader reviews have changed the harmonious reviewing system and
transformed the reader’s roles in this industry.
Keyword:
book review, internet book review, reader review, Amazon.com
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