Rethinking the Crisis of Reading: Literary Ecosystems and  Reading Culture in Contemporary Thailand

Pinkaew Laungaramsri

doi:10.14764/10.ASEAS-0152

Authors

Pinkaew Laungaramsri Chiang Mai University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9494-877X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-0152

Keywords:

Book Studies, Digital Reading Platforms, Literary Ecosystem, Reading Culture, Thailand

Abstract

This article challenges the widely circulated claim that Thailand is a non-reading society. Public dis course frequently reduces reading culture to quantitative indicators such as the number of books read per year, obscuring the complex institutional environments that shape reading practices. Drawing on the concept of the literary ecosystem, this study examines how reading culture in Thailand is structured through the interaction of three key institutions: schools, literary markets, and digital platforms. While schools are formally tasked with cultivating reading habits among children and youth, their emphasis on standardized assessments and instrumental approaches to reading often limits the development of sustained reading engagement. At the same time, popular genres such as manga and Boys’ Love fiction, together with emerging digital reading platforms, have created alternative pathways through which readers develop long-term relationships with books and storytelling. The article argues that the per ceived crisis of reading in Thailand reflects not simply a decline in reader interest but the structural imbalance of a literary ecosystem in which institutional support for reading culture remains uneven. By reframing reading as a socially embedded cultural practice, this study contributes to broader debates in cultural sociology and book studies about the institutional conditions necessary for sustaining reading cultures in the digital age.

Author Biography

Pinkaew Laungaramsri, Chiang Mai University

Pinkaew Laungaramsri is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University.

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