[Commlist] New book: Reading Media

Announcing a new publication from New York University Press:

*Reading Media*

How to Do Textual Analysis

*Jonathan Gray | Daphne Gershon*

*_https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9781479830305/reading-media/ 
<https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9781479830305/reading-media/>_*

*__*

*20% Discount code*: LSMNGUPS26*

*Valid until 11:59 GMT, 30^th  June 2026. Discount only applies to the 
MNG website.

"/Reading Media/ brilliantly demonstrates the continued relevance of 
textual analysis as tool for understanding a vast array of contemporary 
cultural forms from film franchises and digital games to posters and 
TikTok. At once a guide to methods and a compelling set of critical 
essays, this book offers essential frameworks for media studies." - Lynn 
B Spigel, Northwestern University

  Innovative methods in textual analysis to decode today's 
ever-expanding media landscape /Reading Media: How to do Textual 
Analysis /reinvigorates one of media and cultural studies' most 
foundational methods at a moment when it is most needed, showing its 
continuing vitality by adapting it to new media environments, cultural 
objects, and scholarly questions. The volume insists that the close 
study of meaning, form, and representation remains central to 
understanding media's power. With contributions from leading and 
emerging scholars, the book offers a diverse toolkit: from 
narratological and semiotic analysis of film and TV, to historical 
poetic accounts of TikTok, multimodal analysis of Afrobeats music 
videos, and postcolonial criticism of games. Essays extend the scope of 
textual analysis to unexpected objects – such as plastic waste, memes, 
and refugee-authored media – while others demonstrate how texts operate 
across platforms, genres, and transmedia franchises. Beyond offering new 
and improved approaches to textual analysis, each chapter illustrates 
its approach using a specific case study, functioning both as a 
step-by-step how-to guide and as an example of textual analysis in 
action. /Reading Media/ advances a vision of textual analysis that is 
rigorous yet flexible, attuned to both aesthetics and politics, and 
responsive to today's media environment. Essential for students and 
scholars in media, communication, and cultural studies, /Reading 
Media/ both reaffirms and renews textual analysis as an indispensable 
way of engaging with the mediated worlds that shape contemporary life.

*Jonathan Gray* is Hamel Family Distinguished Chair in Communication 
Arts, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of 
Wisconsin, Madison, and author and editor of numerous books, including 
/Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts 
/(2010), and /Keywords for Media Studies/ (2017), as well as /Television 
Studies/ (with Amanda D. Lotz), and /A Companion to Media 
Authorship/ (with Derek Johnson).

*Daphne Gershon* is Lecturer at Gonzaga University. She received her PhD 
from the Media and Cultural Studies program at the University of 
Wisconsin-Madison.

*New York University Press | Critical Cultural Communication | 03 
February 2026 | 400pp | 9781479830305 | PB| £26.99**

*Price subject to change.


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