Reinventing the Book Review in the Age of YouTube, by Dipika Mukherjee
On most days I know how lucky I am to work with words everyday, and in doing so, meet some of the most creative minds of the world. On other days I think I should be coding alone in a basement so that I can be paid without ever making a public appearance again. Don’t get me wrong...I teach and write, so I am quite comfortable pontificating in front of large (captive) audiences. The problem starts when I am being recorded doing so. As I write about Asia, and Asian audiences are right at the forefront of embracing our digitally visual world, I am finding it hard to avoid YouTube. I can, of course, always decline being videotaped, but I find myself more and more on camera, whether it is my publicist wanting a YouTube video, or a radio station in Chicago telling me that folks are much more likely to click on a YouTube link than an audio podcast (and then taping a Part I and Part 2 !) So I found myself at Star Malaysia’s TV studio in Kuala Lumpur in May; not only ...