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This is the web-based presentation of a master thesis which was developed in the context of the master program “Digitale Methodik in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften” (Digital Humanities) at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz and Hochschule Mainz.

The following information can be found on this website:

• Background: theoretical foundations, e.g. impact of reviews on the market, book reviewers, and book reviewing platforms
• Hypotheses: hypotheses derivation, including the argumentative reasoning
• Methods: explanation of the chosen methodology, e.g. used dataset, formalization and operationalization of the hypotheses concepts, etc.
• Results: description and discussion of the results, final conclusion
• Resources: additional resources, e.g. the pdf of the poster of this thesis, a list with Python-scripts, the bibliography, etc.

Short Summary

The thesis analyzes the impact of incentivization on book reviews, in terms of review copies which are send by publishers/authors to literary critics, in this case: lay reviewers on LovelyBooks. The main question is whether incentivized book reviews show signs of influence if the reviewer received a review copy. The reviews are compared in terms of their positivity, complexity, elaborateness, extremeness, and objectivity.