Kaia Sievert and Anna Smithberger
LIS 7050: Research Proposal
Dr. Sook Lim
May 21, 2014
Flipping Book Covers: The Impact of Gendered Book Covers and Author’s Gender on
Adolescent Reading Interests
Problem Statement
Importance of Study/Purpose
This proposed study was inspired by young adult author, Maureen Johnson’s 2013
Coverflip project. Johnson, who has a large Twitter presence in addition to being a popular
young adult novelist, tweeted on May 6, 2013, “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that
says, ‘Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it. - signed, A Guy.’” From there
she proposed a challenge to her Twitter followers, asking them to take well-known novels and
reimagine the cover as though the novel had been written by a person of the opposite gender.
Hundreds of submissions poured in within the twenty-four hours Johnson had designated for the
challenge, with even more appearing around the internet afterwards (Flood, 2013; Peterson,
2013). These showed very clearly the distinct differences in well-known book covers relating to
the gender of the author.
The many examples created during the initial Coverflip project demonstrate that the way
book covers are gendered in order to be marketed to boy readers or girl readers affects the
judgements consumers make of the book itself. It also helps to illustrate the common perception
that books written by men are literary while those written by women are of lesser value, even for
books with relatively similar plots (Flood, 2013).
While there is some evidence that girls and boys tend to look for different things in the
books they choose to read (Hopper, 2005), this division becomes problematic when the division
of girls books and boys books limits adolescent reading choice instead of encouraging it (Dutro,
2001). According to Dutro (2001), children and young adults begin policing their own reading at
a young age, reading books perceived as being written for their own gender and rejecting books
perceived as being written for the opposite gender. Anecdotally, we have examples of authors
(often female, but not always), such as J. K. Rowling or S. E. Hinton, who are asked or who
choose to use initials or a pseudonym to mask their gender so as to not deter male readers from
picking up their book (Cohen, 2012).
Historically, young readers tended to encounter more male characters over female
characters, a disparity that persists today (McCabe, Fairchild, Grauerholz, Pescosolido, & Tope,
2011). Gender representation in juvenile and young adult literature is important to consider,
because as children and young adults grow, books play a role in their socialization process and
often reinforce their evolving personal notions of gender (McCabe et al., 2011). This calls for
closer attention to the way gender is portrayed and perceived in books for teenagers.
Maureen Johnson’s Coverflip project raises important questions in the way adolescents
interact and use book covers. In what ways does the gender assigned to the cover of a book affect
adolescents’ interest in reading the book, independent of the book’s content? No research has yet
been done that analyzes the effect of the gender of a book cover independent of content on
reading choice. This study will attempt to fill this gap. Do adolescents use additional cues to
determine whether they are interested in a book, or do the boy/girl cues on the cover of a book
limit reading choice? Going further, in what ways are reading choices affected by the author’s
gender? We also want to see how much of an effect book cover and author gender will have on
perceived literary merit.
Research Question
Q1: How do gendered book covers on young adult fiction books affect adolescents’
personal interest in a book?
Q2: How do gendered book covers on young adult fiction books affect adolescents’
judgments of the literary merit of a book?
Q3: How does perceived author gender affect adolescents’ personal interest in a book?
Q4: How does perceived author gender affect adolescents’ judgments of the literary merit
of a book?
Literature Review
Book Covers and Book Choice
Purpose of the Book Cover. While the popular aphorism cautions not to judge a book by
its cover, the book cover often plays a major role in how a book is perceived and chosen. Used as
a marketing tool, the book cover communicates the book’s genre, helps determine which section
in the the bookstore the book will be displayed, and helps a potential reader preview what they
are about to read, turning the book into visual media in addition to a literary text. (Matthews,
2007). And because books are often marketed to specific groups instead of a general audience,
sometimes even publishing books with multiple covers to appeal to multiple audiences, cues
from book covers can be analyzed to identify the targeted or intended audience for a book
(Phillips, 2007).
Book Covers and Reading Choice. Book covers are a primary tool readers use to select
a book to read. d’Astous, Colbert, and Mbarek (2006) found three factors with a significant
influence on readers’ interest in books--the reputation of the publisher, the reputation of the
author (in books with technical content), and the attractiveness of the book cover. Of these three,
the researchers suggested the attractiveness of the book cover had the greatest effect; a more
attractive cover was associated with higher interest (d’Astous, Colbert, & Mbarek, 2006).
Cover art is particularly influential for children and young adults. This makes children
and young adult books susceptible to frequent cover redesigns and refreshes in an attempt to
attract new audiences (Jones, 2009). While there is rarely consensus among teens in whether a
cover is good or bad, adolescents look to book covers to give them clues to the book’s content,
genre, and mood, and are very responsive to the use of color, action, and emotion on book covers
(Sullivan 1998, 2000). In fact, when asked to predict whether or not they will like a book,
adolescents often start forming their judgements with the cover art and title, followed by
incorporating information from the book summary on the inside flap or back of the book
(Rinehart, Gerlach, Wisell, & Welker, 1998).
Holmes, Powell, Holmes, and Witt (2007) used existing children’s book covers to
examine the effects of the race of main characters on readers’ interest in the book. They found
that, contrary to their expectations, the race of the characters on the cover did not seem to have
an influence on interest in the book; black children did not prefer books with black characters on
the cover and white children did not demonstrate a preference for books with white characters on
the cover (Holmes, Powell, Holmes, & Witt, 2007).
Gender and Fiction
Perceptions of Women’s Fiction. The more legitimate an art form becomes the less
likely women are to be recognized as real contributors to the field and as such are less likely to
be viewed as creating anything of high artistic value. When the novel was still considered a
lesser form of writing during the nineteenth century women dominated the field. In a survey of
novels from the period of 1866-1917, Tuchman and Fortin (1984) found that as the artform
gained literary prestige men edged women out of the market. Additionally, fiction markets
dominated by women, such as romance, are usually seen as those with the least literary merit and
artistic status.
In a study of gender distribution on bestseller lists and literary award lists Verboord
(2012) looked at lists from the United States, Germany, and France, as they are similarly modern,
western countries, while having different rankings on the international gender gap index and
differing literary markets. As the U.S. has a more commercially driven literary market than either
of the European markets, it also has the greatest percentage of women on the bestseller lists,
coming in at 47 percent with France only hitting 30 percent and Germany falling in the middle
(Verboord, 2012). Across the board literary awards were overwhelmingly granted to men, with
women barely reaching 30 percent of awards recipients in any of the countries, and France
falling well short of that mark with approximately 18 percent (Verboord, 2012). Even when
women are popular enough to achieve bestseller status they are far less likely to have their work
valued or awarded as being of literary merit. Johnson (2006) points out that female fiction (i.e.,
“chick lit”) for young adults often faces derision on multiple levels, because both chick lit and
young adult literature are traditionally overlooked or openly disdained by literary scholars (141).
The Internet has the potential to reduce inequalities in cultural production and valuation
(Verboord, 2011). Female authors along with popular and genre fiction may be gaining more
attention not traditionally obtained through newspapers by way of blogs and websites such as
GoodReads and Amazon (Verboord, 2011).
Gender and Young Adult Literature. Young people's reading choices are many and
varied, but we also see a general understanding that books are gendered (Hopper, 2005). In a
study of fifth graders’ reading choices, Dutro (2001) found that school age children have already
been conditioned to police masculinity amongst themselves and in their reading habits.
Masculine/Feminine dualism is one of the ways in which humans organize the world, and these
entrenched gender myths put children in a position where boys feel the need to project enough
masculine traits to avoid ridicule (Dutro, 2001). As gender is highly performative and as
masculinity grants greater social and cultural status, the boys in the study were reluctant and
extremely agitated by the thought of anything they saw as transgressing their prescribed gender
roles. Girls were at times willing to make those transgressions, but the majority chose to read
along gender lines and all were just as likely to gender books (Dutro, 2001).
While gendering books remains common in young adult literature, Brendler and Tarulli
(2014) some evidence that Millennials are more likely to “reject the idea of gender as a
determinant of societal roles” (222). There have also been some recent trends is young adult
literature that find male and female characters reversing traditional gender roles, leading to more
male and female teen readers choosing books they would not normally be supposed to choose
(Brendler & Tarulli, 2014). However, Taber, Woloshyn, and Lone (2013) found that when girls
were asked to reflect on reading The Hunger Games, a young adult dystopian novel, they could
recognize the ways in which the male and female main characters challenged traditional
heteronormative gender roles, but they did accept these disruptions. In a survey of young adult
novel cover updates and reissues Bengal (2008) reported that boys found books with “girly”
covers embarrassing to be seen reading.
Young Adult Reading Behaviors
Koss and Teale (2009) examined current trends in popular young adult literature, and
found that the market is dominated by contemporary, realistic fiction, almost always featuring
white main characters and “themes of fitting in, finding oneself, and dealing with major life
changes” (569). Research has also shown that teens tend to prefer protagonists of the same
gender as themselves (Brendler & Tarulli, 2014). Still, teens are interested in many issues and
Yampbell (2005) has found that while gatekeepers often underestimate what teens can handle,
young adults are extremely interested in books covering hard topics like sex, drugs, and death.
They also have a real need for books that give them roadmaps for navigating these difficult
topics in the real world, and sometimes the focus on the gender divide diminishes their abilities
to access those resources properly (Hubler, 2000).
Since teens are interested in a wide range of topics and genres, they learn to identify
interesting books by their book covers and jacket blurbs. A joint Publisher’s Weekly and Book
Expo America survey of teen readers found that fifty-seven percent of the teens agreed that the
book’s cover is the greatest influence on their choices (Scott, 1998). Later research by Hopper
(2005) found that only prior knowledge of the book or author was more important to teens in
book choice than the appearance of the book. Often the last major consideration teens make
when deciding whether or not to read a book is genre (Hopper, 2005).
Research Hypotheses
Based on our literature review, we propose the following hypotheses:
H1: Adolescents will show greater interest for books marketed for their gender (e.g.,
males will prefer male-gendered covers and females will prefer female-gendered covers).
However, females will also show greater willingness to “cross-over” and also read books with
male-gendered covers.
H2: Books with male-gendered covers will be perceived as having higher literary merit
than female-gendered covers.
H3: Adolescents will be more interested in reading books by an author of the same
perceived gender.
H4: Books by male authors will be perceived as having higher literary merit than female
authors.
Methodology
Design/Data Collection Method
This study will use an experimental design to test the impact of two independent
variables, the gender of the book cover and the gender of the author, on two dependent variables,
adolescent reading interest and perceived literary value of the book. We define interest in reading
a book as willingness to check it out from a library, purchase, or in some way bring into their
home with the intent of reading and the literary value as the expectation that a book would be
recommended or endorsed by authority figures or win an award.
Subjects will be randomly assigned to a control group or experimental group. Subjects in
both groups will read the same four books young adult book synopses which are written to be
completely gender-neutral. In addition, subjects in the experimental group will be presented with
a book cover and short author biography and photo. For each synopsis, the experimental subject
will randomly see one of two versions of the book cover, either targeted toward a male audience
or female audience. The author biography and photos will also be randomly assigned to each
book. For each synopsis, the author biography will remain the same, but the photo, name, and
personal pronouns will be changed to reflect a male or female persona. The subjects in the
control group will not see a book cover, but will receive the author biography with a gender
neutral name and description.
As shown in Figure 1, within the experimental group, there will be four possible
combinations of book cover/author for each gender-neutral synopsis: female-gendered cover
with female author, female-gendered cover with male author, male-gendered cover with female
author, or male-gendered cover with male author. The experimental subject will only get one of
these combinations per synopsis. All cover/author combinations will be randomly assigned, the
type of cover and author received for one synopsis will have no impact over the type of cover
and author received for the other synopses.
After reading the synopses and
author biographies, and in the case of the
experimental group, viewing the cover art,
subjects will respond to questions on a 5point Likert Scale designed to assess their
interest in reading the book and their perception of the book’s literary merit.
All materials used in the study will be created from scratch to eliminate outside influence
of previously published authors, movie-versions, etc. The gender-neutral synopses will be
written by current students, known by the researchers, who are currently part of Hamline
University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program. All synopses will be
written for the same genre to eliminate the influence of genre preference. The genre selected for
this study is realistic contemporary fiction, noted for being very popular among a large number
of teens. The gendered book covers will be designed by a graphic designer known to the
researchers. The book covers will be based on current book covers in the realistic contemporary
fiction genre, pulled from 2013 and 2014 bestseller lists, the 2013 YALSA Teens’ Top Ten List,
and reviews of upcoming Young Adult publications from Booklist.
Because the materials for this study are being designed from scratch, the materials will be
pre-tested and evaluated by a small focus group of teenagers who identify as frequent readers. In
particular, the researchers will look for consensus on the targeted gender of the book cover
design as well as the lack of gender cues in the synopses. Participants for the pre-test will be
recruited through a young adult reading group such as the Teens Know Best group at Saint Paul
Public Library.
Measurement
We have operationalized our independent variables in the following ways. Gender of
author will be presented by using first names that are strongly gendered as either male or female
for each of the fictional authors we have chosen. The included author bios will have gendered
pronouns depending upon the assigned gender and an author photo of an individual presenting
that gender. Gender of the book cover will be based upon current publishing trends in order to
present books that would clearly gender as masculine or feminine.
Our primary measurement of our dependent variables will be the use of 5-point Likert
Scales to determine both interest in the book and perceived value or literary merit. After each
book cover and author blurb is presented to the participant they will then be asked to fill out an
electronic form like the one included below:
Based on the materials you have viewed, please indicate how interested you would be in reading
this book.
Not interested
at all
Mildly
interested
Interested
Very
Interested
Extremely
Interested
1
2
3
4
5
Please indicate any factors that contributed to your answer:
Based on the materials you have viewed please indicate how much you agree or disagree with
the following statements about this book:
1. My teacher would recommend that I read this book.
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly
agree
1
2
3
4
5
Please indicate any factors that contributed to your answer:
2. This book seems like a book that would win a national award.
Strongly
disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly
agree
1
2
3
4
5
Please indicate any factors that contributed to your answer:
After collecting our data we will analyze it using SPSS in order to determine whether any of our
hypotheses are correct.
Sampling Procedures
Our sample population is school-aged teens (13-18 years old), with an accessible
population of teens in Minnesota/the Twin Cities area. As we are working with teens it is not
feasible to do probability sampling, so this will be a convenience sample. In order to recruit
participants we will reach out to English teachers, school media specialists, and youth services
librarians in the metro area and in southern Minnesota who are known to us or connected with St.
Catherine University in order to find people interested in partnering with us. In order to help
incentivize teacher participation we will offer coverflip materials/activities that they could then
use to connect their classroom to the study after the experiment is completed. From there we will
work with those willing partners along with school administrations and the IRB in order to fully
approve our research and move forward with the experiment.
Once we have established those connections we will invite the teens in those classes or
involved in those library programs to participate in the experiment and lay out the requirements-like parental permission-- along with our incentives. Depending upon the decisions of the
teachers we will consider having extra credit for the participants’ classes as an incentive to
participate. For participants coming to us from the public libraries or from schools where the
teachers do not wish to attach extra credit to participation, or even just for all participants, we
would offer teens the opportunity to enter a drawing for (a) Target gift card(s) with the number of
gift cards available and the amounts being determined by our budget.
Although our sample will be non-random, we will be randomly assigning participants to
the experimental or control groups, and in the experimental groups participants will be randomly
assigned one of four permutations of each of the mock books created for the experiment.
Ethical Issues
Although there are no known risks--either psychological or physical--involved with
participation in this experiment, because we intend to work with young people there are some
ethical concerns. As we will be working through public schools we plan to work with teachers
and the school administration in addition to the the St. Catherine University Institutional Review
Board (IRB) to ensure that the participants are not being exploited in any way. For participants
under the age of eighteen we will require informed consent from a parent or guardian, along with
informed consent from all the teenaged participants as they are autonomous individuals and
should be treated as such. Any and all personal information we collect in conducting the
experiment will be kept completely confidential and we will refrain from including personal
information of participants in the final report. Of course, all participation will be completely
voluntary even though we are incentivizing said participation. We will make sure that any
student recruited through high school classes is not being required to participate in order to
receive mandatory class credit as opposed to the possibility of extra credit.
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