Telecommunications professor Anandam Kavoori has written Reading YouTube, which attempts to make sense of the complex universe of stories that is YouTube.
Through genre analysis and digital media criticism, this book presents an accessible, yet critical introduction to reading YouTube drawing on the history of television, film and of emergent digital forms, including video games and social media. The book identifies certain videos by genre—from “The Phenom” and “The Short” to “The Morph” and “The Experiment”—and provides a thumbnail textual analysis of the videos from celebrity culture to identity politics that make up each of these genres. Each one starts with a brief summary/background followed by a theoretically informed mapping of the key issues. The book develops a conceptual language for readers to use as they engage with the complex, interactive texts of YouTube and digital culture more generally.
