Shakiba Barghi

Shakiba Barghi is a PhD candidate in Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne. Her research examines contemporary reading cultures and the ways readers build identities and communities around books on social media, particularly on BookTok, Bookstagram and BookTube.

She is interested in how readers recommend, discuss, display and experience books online, and how digital platforms shape literary taste, fandom, genre communities and bookish practices.

In 2026, she was selected as one of five researchers nationally for the ABC TOP 5 Arts Media Residency, a program focused on communicating research and complex ideas to broad public audiences.