BOOKS AS A PART OF CONSUMER CULTURE

Reading is an important cultural, social and intellectual activity: it is a self-regulated behaviour carried out by the reader who is also a part of a social system. Reading itself, as well as its performance, is both a processual and a culturally-constructed phenomenon. Reading has become a natural cultural activity, as we read virtually anywhere. Reading has become a complementary activity, filling spare time. Accordingly, the content read has been adapted to the new function of reading. An ever increasing portion of the literary market is occupied by products that do not even pretend to offer any value to the reader any longer. Reduction of the recipient to a consumer is accompanied by the resignation on the perception of complex structures and configurations, the stagnation of the synthetic and analytic abilities, as well as the atrophy of the sense for aesthetic values.