reading public
Literate general population
The reading public refers to the general population of people who read, especially those who buy and consume books, newspapers, or magazines.
It's a collective term used when discussing who an author writes for or how published works are received: The novel shocked the reading public when it first appeared.
Publishers and critics invoke the reading public when considering what audiences want or will tolerate.
- audienceGathered viewers collectively
- general audienceUnrestricted viewership category
- literaryOf written works
- literary tastePreference in books
- bookwormsVoracious readers, or page-eating larvae
book clubs · subscribers · mass market · circulation · masses · bestseller · popular · newspapers · magazines · libraries · novels · critics · taste · demand · appetite · consumption · middlebrow · educated
- publishingeditors, editor, books, booksellers, novels
- populacethe masses, common folk, ordinary people, hoi polloi, everyman
- printing historyprinting press, Gutenberg, typographers, Gutenberg press, block printing
- 18th-century women's writingfemale authors, Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, women writers, female poets
reading publicviewing audience
Broadcast watchers collectively
radio audience · moviegoers · oral culture · listeners · theatergoers
reading, public, read, reads, reader, readers, readership, readable, unreadable