A cross-country study on cultural similarities based on book preferences
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A cross‑country study on cultural similarities based on book preferences Nazanin Sabri1 · Sadaf Sadeghian1 · Behnam Bahrak1 Received: 13 May 2020 / Revised: 9 September 2020 / Accepted: 11 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract What people choose to read is believed to be highly influenced by their cultural backgrounds and environment. Thus, understanding the cultural and socioeconomic factors that have significant relations with the reading preferences of nations can be of great importance for the book retail industry. These insights can have applications in recommender systems, sales predictions, and customer relationship management. Motivated by these values, we conducted a large-scale cross-country analysis of cultural similarities and differences based on book preferences using data collected from Goodreads. We use bipartite configuration model and community detection to explore the relationships between countries based on their book preferences. We also investigate the similarities between countries based on their favorite genres and authors. Additionally, this paper explores the significance of cultural, lingual, and socioeconomics factors on book preferences using quadratic assignment procedure statistical tests. Our results indicate that geographical distance, lingual distance, cognitive ability, intelligence quotient, and individualism are all significantly associated with book preference at the country level. Keywords Cultural similarity · Bipartite configuration model · Book preferences · Goodreads · Quadratic assignment procedure
1 Introduction Books are one of the most defining measures of a country’s culture and cultural values. What people choose to read is closely related to their ideas, background, and intellectual achievements. Thus, the reading preferences of the majority of the population of a country can be a significant indicator of that country’s culture, and therefore can be used to study cultural similarities and differences among countries. Such studies can help us understand how culture, upbringing, and other external factors can drive reading habits of a society, and provide valuable information for the publishing industry. This information can especially be used for book marketing campaigns and recommender systems. Goodreads is a social network targeted towards book lovers. The website allows users to add, rate, and review books they have read as well as offering them the chance to form friendships with other readers on the website or to follow * Nazanin Sabri [email protected] 1
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
their favorite authors. Launched in January 2007, Goodreads has had a more gradual growth compared to social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, accumulating a total of 90 million members till 2020. Nevertheless, Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and books with more than 2.6 billion books and 90 millio
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