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Introduction
Mobile reading refers to personal reading behaviour on mobile handhold devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, PSPs, MP4s and e-readers, and it is emerging as Zhang and Ma (2011) predicted. While smartphones offer a new, affordable and easy-to-use portal for reading material, reading with smartphones is emerging as the most ultra-modern reading approach in both personal and work environments. Statistical data show that the shipments of smartphones reached 1.29 billion in 2015, whereas the total number of global smartphones users would be over 2 billion by 2016 (eMarketer, 2014; TrendForce, 2016). In more recent years, super-duper hardware and network environment have facilitated the breakthrough of the mobile service industry in China. According to a government report issued by China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC, 2016), the quantity of Chinese mobile service users has researched 656 million by June 2016. The prosperity of the mobile service market has ushered in mobile reading as a ubiquitous and nationwide reading model for the Chinese people. In addition, on account of the integration of portable and flexible TIME (telecom, internet, media, and entertainment) service, the mobile reading industry appeals to various stakeholders, such as IT vendors, telecom carriers and content providers. Up to now, three major telecom carriers in China (China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom), traditional publishing houses, content service providers and some internet companies (such as Tencent.inc, Alibaba.inc, Baidu.inc, etc.) are all making great efforts to explore the mobile reading market.
According to the theory of remedial media, new born media emerge as compensation or remedy for existing media formats or their functional deficiencies (Jou et al. , 2016). From this point of view, mobile reading can be considered as a reinvention of the web-based reading approach (Itzkovitch, 2012). It includes personalised and flexible content while providing interactivity, mobility, timeliness, as well as the ability to overcome multiple temporal and spatial barriers (Jou et al. , 2016). Academic attention to mobile reading has taken on paramount importance concerning the fast development of this industry. The notion, strength and weakness of e-books are initial research topics. The consensus is that convenience (CV) and the ability to view documents from on and off campus and 24/7 accessibility are the primary reasons for the wide acceptance of...