Reading YouTube: The Critical Viewers Guide

How does one make sense of Youtube? There is no reliable "sample" of videos on Youtube; no easily identifiable way to determine its dominant themes; no way to evaluate "quality"; no benchmarks for establishment of impact, no seminal literature. Drawing on genre analysis and digital media criticism, Kavoori presents an accessible, yet critical text for "reading" YouTube. Very much a guide to some of the important videos found on YouTube, the videos are chosen because they conform to a list of genres identified by the author. These genres range from The Phenom and The Short to The Morph and The Experiment. The bulk of the text is made up of "entries" that provide 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. Designed primarily for classroom use, it develops a conceptual language for students to use as they engage with the complex, interactive texts of YouTube and digital culture more generally.