Özet:

The reception/reading habits of audience/users have changed as a result of the new media. Since the new media has enabled interactive participation, alongside being the consumers of the content, receivers are also able to produce and transform the content. In this context, receivers can transform content by acting in narrative. In this narrative style involving the interaction of the target group, same content can be published via various platforms, thus reaching a wider audience. According to this concept, which is called Transmedia storytelling, content can reach receivers on multiple platforms by diversifying. In this study "Wattpad" was taken as an example of a transmedia storytelling, which is an application that allows users to share their stories and read other members’ posts for free. Wattpad stories which initially met their readers on an online story-telling platform, has now reached mass media, ranging from printed books, social networking fan groups and motion pictures. This study aims to investigate the preferences and habits of Wattpad readers in the study. Our research examines readers/audiences reading preferences, how they learned about Wattpad, if they would recommend Wattpad to friends, whether or not they communicate with writers and publishers, and their favourite books and authors. To investigate the general situation of Wattpad users, experimental research method which is one of the quantitative research methods was applied in this research. A face-to-face survey was conducted as a data collection tool. First of the few hypotheses of the study is that friends and social circles play role in the preference of reading Wattpad. Another hypothesis was that communication with Wattpad authors positively affect reading habits. The last hypothesis, claim that Wattpad readers prefer to follow the content they like in transmedia-style through other social media tools. As the result of the study all the hypotheses are proven. The conclusions of the study show that the majority of Wattpad readers prefer to communicate with their writers, readers have chosen and read such content primarily because they are humorous and have simple language, and users have usually reached these through their friends' recommendations.