Media and Communications

Media and Communications

episodes

Interviews with scholars of media and communications about their new books.

Weipin Tsai, "The Making of China's Post Office: Sovereignty, Modernization, and the Connection of a Nation" (Harvard UP, 2024)

June 3, 2026

The Making of China's Post Office

Weipin Tsai

How did a vast, nationwide institution like a modern postal system come into being in Qing China—right at the very end of the empire? In The Making…

Rahul Mukherjee, "Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution" (MIT Press, 2026)

June 2, 2026

Unlimited

Rahul Mukherjee
Hosted by Priyam Sinha

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the fir…

Jonatan Leer and Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager, "Food Porn: Food Aesthetics in a Digital Age" (Bristol UP, 2026)

May 31, 2026

Food Porn

Jonatan Leer and Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Is food porn a vibrant and democratic new expression of modern food culture or a superficial addition to an image-saturated world? Tracing its o…

Media, Power, and the Gaza Narrative

May 29, 2026

Media, Power, and the Gaza Narrative

How Western media shapes public understanding of Gaza, Palestine, and conflict through language, political narratives, and global power structures. I…

Shefalee Vasudev, "Stories We Wear: Status, Spectacle and the Politics of Appearance" (Westland Non-Fiction, 2025)

May 28, 2026

Stories We Wear

Shefalee Vasudev
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, is known for his outfits. Since rising to become India’s head of government in 2014, photographers and journali…

Turn Your LinkedIn Profile into a Book Marketing Machine with Louise Brogan

May 27, 2026

Turn Your LinkedIn Profile into a Book Marketing Machine

Louise Brogan
Hosted by Sarah Russo

What if in the age of AI generated content, the most important part of being visible online is just being a human? In this episode of The Publishing P…

Oscar Winberg, "Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics" (UNC Press, 2025)

May 25, 2026

Archie Bunker for President

Oscar Winberg
Hosted by Lilly Goren

Political historian Oscar Winberg has a fascinating new book titled Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics. Thi…

Tony Lee Moral, "A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, the Myths, the Legacy" (UP of Kentucky, 2026)

May 22, 2026

A Century of Hitchcock

Tony Lee Moral

For over a century, Alfred Hitchcock has remained one of cinema's most influential directors. Known as the Master of Suspense, this visionary filmmake…

Thomas Doherty, "How Film Became History: The Rise of the Archival Documentary in 1930s America" (Columbia UP, 2026)

May 20, 2026

How Film Became History

Thomas Doherty
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

By the 1930s, filmmakers had access to a backlog of footage from nearly forty years of motion pictures, allowing them to create a new kind of film sti…

Rachel Deblinger, "Saving Our Survivors: How American Jews Learned about the Holocaust" (Indiana UP, 2025)

May 20, 2026

Saving Our Survivors

Rachel Deblinger
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

How did American Jews come to learn about the Holocaust in the immediate aftermath of the war? What kinds of images and representations of Holocaust s…

Angharad N. Valdivia and Isabel Molina-Guzmán, "Rebooting Inequality: Critical Takes on Film and Television Remakes" (NYU Press, 2026)

May 20, 2026

Rebooting Inequality

Angharad N. Valdivia and Isabel Molina-Guzmán
Hosted by Pete Kunze

From Ghostbusters to Will & Grace, One Day at a Time to Jurassic Park, the past decade has seen Hollywood reach a new peak in its obsession with reboo…

Georgia C. Ennis, "Rainforest Radio: Language Reclamation and Community Media in the Ecuadorian Amazon" (U Arizona Press, 2025)

May 19, 2026

Rainforest Radio

Georgia Ennis
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In Rainforest Radio: Language Reclamation and Community Media in the Ecuadorian Amazon (U Arizona Press, 2025), Dr. Georgia C. Ennis provides a compr…

Heather Ann Thompson, "Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage" (Pantheon, 2026)

May 18, 2026

Fear and Fury

Heather Ann Thompson
Hosted by N'Kosi Oates

Historian Heather Ann Thompson’s Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage (Pantheon, 2026) recou…

Mischa Oak, "Rainbow Wisdom: 18 LGBTQ+ Life Lessons for Everyone" (Page Two Book Inc. 2026)

May 17, 2026

Rainbow Wisdom

Mischa Oak
Hosted by Hollay Ghadery

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Mischa Oak about his book, Rainbow Wisdom: 18 LGBTQ Life Lessons for Everyone (Page Two Book Inc.…

Ayşehan Jülide Etem, "Film Diplomacy: A Media History of Turkey-US Relations" (Columbia UP, 2026)

May 16, 2026

Film Diplomacy

Ayşehan Jülide Etem
Hosted by Ailin Zhou

Film Diplomacy: A Media History of Turkey-US Relations (Columbia UP, 2026) offers a powerful new account of how film shaped international relations an…

Aymar Jèan Escoffery, "Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal Our Culture" (MIT Press, 2025)

May 15, 2026

Reparative Media

Aymar Jean Escoffery
Hosted by Pete Kunze

Can producing stories and developing platforms to support people who have been harmed by multiple, intersecting systems heal those systems? In Reparat…

Es-pranza Humphrey, "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen" (Poster House Museum, 2026)

May 12, 2026

Act Black

Es-pranza Humphrey
Hosted by Sullivan Summer

Starting in the 1880s, Black performers, and those invested in telling stories centering Black people, attempted to counter the dehumanizing and harmf…

Carol Rittner and John K Roth, "This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today" (‎iPub Cloud, 2026)

May 9, 2026

This Time

Carol Rittner and John K Roth
Hosted by Marci Mazzarotto

Written for educators, scholars, graduate students, and readers engaged in Holocaust education, genocide studies, history, ethics, religious studies, …

Robin Andersen, "The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza" (OR Books, 2026)

May 9, 2026

The Complicit Lens

Robin Andersen
Hosted by Stuti Roy

Robin Andersen's latest book, The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza (OR Books, 2026), is a forensic and unflinching exami…

Ana I. Oancea, "Dangerous Creations: The Inventor Novel in Fin-de-siècle France" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

May 6, 2026

Dangerous Creations

Ana I. Oancea
Hosted by Gina Stamm

Dangerous Creations: The Inventor Novel in Fin-de-siècle France (U Toronto Press, 2025) presents a master narrative of the inventor in fin-de-siècle F…