In recent years, various kinds of variety shows are piled up on screen. Consequently, audiences have been bored with these programs since they are similar in contents and are lack of innovations. Readers, as a cultural variety show, takes the creative forms combining interview, reading and slight analysis of classic literary works together. Through “one person corresponds to one piece of story behind his or her reading text.” it successfully reveals the close relationship between human life and literature. Accordingly, research tends to focus on the innovative forms and communicative values of this program. However, few studies pay attention to the cognitive reasons for this program’s popularity. Therefore, this paper aims at analyzing Readers based on the theory of mental representation. Probing into the topics, reading texts, the studio and reading pavilions of Readers, this paper further shows the triggers and importance of mental representation in Readers.
Keywords: readers; cultural variety show; mental representation
