New Books in Communications

No! The Art and Activism of Complaining

To be heard as complaining is not to be heard, writes Sara Ahmed. In No! The Art and Activism of Complaining, her sweeping exploration of complaint as a means of resistan

Designing Historical Games for Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Educators with Jeremiah McCall (Routledge, 2026)

Designing Historical Games for Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Educators (Routledge, 2026) is a complete introductory guide for designing analog games and interactive c

Fire in the Heart of the City: The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Charity with David Conrad-Pérez (NYU Press, 2026)

In American history, few tragedies have been as consequential—and as enduringly misunderstood—as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Long remembered as a turnin

Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life with Mona Sloane (U California Press, 2026)

How AI is rewiring our social fabric—and how we can better shape our future.   The age of AI is not what you think. Rather than ushering in a fourth Industrial Revolution

The Hypocrisy Trap: How Changing What We Criticize Can Improve Our Lives with Michael Hallsworth (MIT Press, 2026)

In our increasingly distrusting and polarized world, accusations of hypocrisy are everywhere. But our attempts to stamp out hypocrisy may backfire, creating what Michael

The Best 100 TV Shows of the 21st Century

It’s the Pop Culture Professors, and the New York Times has published its list of the best 100 television shows of the 21st Century. We react to this list, ponder what is

Climate Hegemony: Confronting the Politics of Environmental Impasse with Laurie Parsons (LSE Press, 2026)

Climate action is at an impasse. Its political opponents are stronger than ever, its advocates powerless. Almost every major government and corporation expresses their c

Power Surge: Conglomerate Hollywood and the Studio System's Last Hurrah with Thomas Schatz (U California Press, 2026)

Thomas Schatz returns us to an era when a newly enriched movie industry rediscovered its creative energy, and indie went mainstream without losing its edge. Between 1989

Projecting Knowledge: The Optical Lantern and Science Communication, 1880s-1940s with Dulce da Rocha Gonçalves, Nico de Klerk and Frank Kessler (Brepols, 2026)

Projecting Knowledge: The Optical Lantern and Science Communication, 1880s-1940s (Brepols, 2026) takes one of those fundamental questions - how does knowledge circulate?

Wave Makers and the Rise of #MeToo in Taiwan: Media, Empathy, and Digital Testimony with Xinling Li (Anthem Press, 2026)

When the Taiwanese political drama Wave Makers appeared in April 2023, few anticipated its impact beyond the screen. Within weeks, survivors in politics, the media, acade

Playing with Plays: Drama and Early Modern Chinese Media Ecologies with Yinghui Wu (Brill, 2025)

How was drama experienced in early modern China? It was not tied to a single medium such as the page or the stage, but operated in a media ecology—an environment in which

Ehsan Dehghan, "The Discursive-Digital Link: Antagonism and Polarisation in Digital Spaces" (Routledge, 2025)

We are in a state of crisis. Democracy is under threat, authoritarian politics are on the rise, and digital media—once heralded as emancipatory technologies—are increasin

Glenn Peers, "Strange and Familiar History of Byzantine Art: Interpretation, Risk, and Empathy" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)

Strange and Familiar History of Byzantine Ar: Interpretation, Risk, and Empathy (ARC Humanities Press, 2026) represents a risky experiment in art-history writing. It take

Joe Jackson, "Kahlil Joseph and the Audiovisual Atlantic: Music, Modernity, Transmedia Art" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Kahlil Joseph has collaborated with musicians FKA twigs, Flying Lotus, Sampha and Shabazz Palaces among many others. He has directed numerous films, music videos and adve

Samantha Barbas, "Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma" (U California Press, 2026)

The United States has no hate speech laws; hate speech is generally considered to be free speech under the First Amendment. In Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History

Jennifer Hoewe, "Enjoyment Is Breaking News: How We Became Less Informed and More Divided (and How to Fix It)" (MIT Press, 2026)

Why we crave enjoyment from news, how our news use divides us, and what we can do to create better news and more informed citizens. TikTok. Short-form reels. Late-night T

Emeka Umejei, "China in African Media: Between Influence Operations and Decolonization" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

At its core, China in African Media: Between Influence Operations and Decolonization (Bloomsbury, 2026) is a book about power, journalism, geopolitical influence, and kno

Debarati Sanyal, "Arts of the Border: Fugitive Bodies at Europe’s Edges" (Fordham, 2025)

Arts of the Border: Fugitive Bodies at Europe’s Edges (Fordham, 2025) investigates the consequences of unfolding catastrophes across the world and the displacement they c

Violaine Roussel, "Data-Driven Hollywood: The New Data Professionals in the Age of Streaming" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In Hollywood today, thousands of data specialists work for streaming video platforms, playing a role not just in distribution and marketing but also in decisions about co

Autumn Lorimer Linford, "Extra! Extra! A History of America's Girl Newsies" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

American pop culture loves newsies. The children who bawled out headlines and sold newspapers on city streets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have be