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Kinokuniya’s Communication

On July 21st 2023, brick and mortar bookstore Kinokuniya Sydney made a series of social media posts on X (formerly Twitter) about their victory in having Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe rated for sale in Australia and returning to store shelves.

Turning the clock back a few months, in March 2023 Kinokuniya was asked by the Classification Board of Australia to stop selling Gender Queer: A Memoir due to concerns that it was unsuitable for sale. Kinokuniya’s choices from that point were detailed in an original blog post made on their website about the issue.

After a submitting a request for classification themselves, and then after that classification was appealed, the final outcome of the ordeal was the Classification Board of Australia categorising Gender Queer as Unrestricted (M).

The core issue is one of moral panics. As explained by Stanley Cohen (2011), moral panics often come in seven variations. In the case of Gender Queer: A Memoir, the critics of the book appear to draw from variation 4: “Child Abuse, Satanic Rituals and Paedophile Registers”. In this case a modern moral panic threatening freedom of speech and expression is the idea that trans and gender-nonconforming expressions present a risk to young people. However, while they represents a background context for what started the issue at hand, it’s not where I want to focus the analysis.

My main interest in examining this communication from Kinokuniya Sydney is the intent and purpose of an organisation writing a victory lap social media post in the first place. Who is the audience? Who does it benefit? What is the underlying message?

With regards to this moment in history, Kinokuniya has a number of publics (people interested in the issue). To start, their social media followers represent a type of opt-in group of individuals who have flagged themselves as interested in updates and promotions. Kinokuniya Sydney has around 8,200 followers at time of writing. A second major group is people invested in this as a culture-war topic. The thread posted includes a number of hashtags which would theoretically draw in browsers such as #maiakobabe and #genderqueer. Other relevant publics include The Classification Board of Australia, Maia Kobabe, journalists (as a media public) and even opponents of the decision.

These publics can roughly be split into two main camps: supportive and unsupportive. The purpose of the victory lap can also be divided into parts.

There is an element of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence at play (Rössler and Schulz 2013). By broadcasting the win to the best extent that they could, Kinokuniya subtly nudges the discourse and attempts to influence future discourse.

Furthermore the social media posts broadcast to authors like Maia Kobabe that Kinokuniya shares values of freedom of expression, LGBTQIA+ rights, and that Kinokuniya is willing to go out of their way to protect those rights (how true that is on a broad scale cannot be determined from this instance).

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, this social media post broadcasts to all interested publics that Gender Queer: A Memoir is available for purchase right now at Kinokuniya dot com dot au! Regardless of the content of the book, the social media post positioned purchasing it as a conscious decision to support free expression and queer creators.

This kind of marketing isn’t unusual. The outcome of attempted bans is often a counter-wave of interest (Pfeifer 2023), including for this very book (in the US) (Ali 2022). But it’s not a guaranteed thing, and Kinokuniya can only encourage it with what power they have.

So was Kinokuniya Sydney’s communication successful? As far as metrics are concerned, we won’t know how well the book sells unless figures are released (the book has not sold out yet). The main post received about 18 thousand views (based on X’s visible metrics), which is roughly 36 times more views than an average post by the account. There were also 56 retweets (at time of publishing) which is significantly higher than an average post. While not viral, the post has performed well compared to most others by the account. This is undoubtedly a victory from the company’s perspective.

Resources:
  Ali S (21 September 2022) 'How banning books can actually increase their sales', The Hill website, accessed 5 October 2023. https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/3654369-how-banning-books-can-actually-increase-their-sales/

  Cohen S (2011) 'Folk devils and moral panics : the creation of the Mods and Rockers', Routledge.

  Rössler P and Schulz A (2013) 'Public Opinion Expression in Online Environments', in Donsbach W, Salmon C and Tsfati Y (eds.) The Spiral of Silence : New Perspectives on Communication and Public Opinion, Taylor & Francis, London, 101-118.

  Pfeifer J (26 September 2023) 'With Book Bans on the Rise, Prof Examines Importance of Banned Books Week', Davidson College website, accessed 5 October 2023. https://www.davidson.edu/news/2023/09/26/book-bans-rise-prof-examines-importance-banned-books-week