In adopting a new form of media practice, one might be forgiven for a certain level of naivety regarding the technological skills, creative applications, intellectual reflections and socio-cultural outcomes that would result. This is certainly true for two of the editors of this book. Dario Llinares and Neil Fox have produced The Cinematologists since 2015, the decision to start a podcast emerging from a fusion of the scholarly and personal pleasures of discussing all things cinema, allied with the sense that this relatively new audio medium could offer the potential to amalgamate the depth and rigour of academic research with the immediacy, openness and distribution power of the internet. Podcasting imbued in us the enthusiasm of possibility. Namely the possibility, in one āspaceā, to create a considered yet engaging conversation that merges criticality, scholarship, fandom and practice, not to mention the possibility of attracting an audience that found value in our conversations. We soon came to realise that working in audio was a different register to writing. The processes of production and the creation of content affords new freedoms with regard to the communication of knowledge. The mediumās hybridity of thought, sound and text perhaps even fosters a reinvigoration of the dialectic, an exchange of ideas beyond what is possible in purely written formābe it in a magazine or academic journal. Podcasting, for us, taps into something fundamental about oral communication , argument and even the tension between subjective and objective knowledge that has been amplified in the digital age. Perhaps our attitude to working in the medium is somewhat quixotic and idealised but podcasting seems to possess the advantages of the internet while expelling some of the pitfalls. The podcast āspaceā engendering a forum for discussion that is not defined by the culture of instantaneous reaction, soundbite reductionism and anonymous mudslinging.
Undoubtedly our fandom of podcasts more broadly, spanning a range of genres, subjects and formats, was instrumental in inspiring us to create our own. The flexibility of listening and the relative lack of editorial and formal scrutiny in production marks the medium as something different, more radical, and more culturally urgent than radio. Furthermore, the technological specifics of the medium cultivates an autonomy of approach that result in conversational, informal, personal, even supportive, atmospheres. Podcasting also exemplifies the maxim that āthe specific is universalā by creating spaces for niche and cult content that caters for the more idiosyncratic cultures of interest. This openness to specialism, works counterintuitively, imbuing a sense of inclusivity for both producers and listeners. No matter how deep or obscure your interests are, there is a podcast for you, or there is (relatively) little stopping you making your own. Podcasting culture thus manages to be both personal and communal, a sensibility that is related to the active choice the listener has to exercise, and the modes of consumptionāthrough headphones , car sound systems, home computers, mobile phones etc.āwhich imbue a deeply sonorous intimacy . To be a private, silent participant in other peopleās interests, conversations , lives and experiences , relating to a subject you are passionate about, generates a deep sense of connection. Perhaps such immersion into a simultaneously interior and exterior sonic experience may be the essential reason why podcasts have become so popular: they offer the listener a means to explore the self while simultaneously providing anchoring points in the chaos of a digital and material experience that is increasingly blurred.
Our production and consumption of podcasts has had effects that have gone beyond what we had foreseen, provoking a range of questions related to the very ontology of the medium, its context in the current media landscape, and how it instigates a self-reflectivity regarding oneās identity as a mediated and mediating subject. As academics working in the broad landscape of the humanities the overwhelmingly transformational force of āthe digitalā predicates our work. Indeed, researching and teaching in media today requires both a search for apposite angles of analysis and modes of expression that capture the zeitgeist. Higher education is, of course, not immune to the effects of convergence culture, transmedia dissemination and the myriad reconfigurations of digital production, distribution and exhibition. Podcasting has, for us and for many of the authors in this book, inspired and enabled the creation of new avenues of research dissemination, expanding the sphere of influence across platforms and audiences . In this sense, podcasting is a significant part of the growing open-source ethos that challenges the structures of traditional academic publishing, and perhaps even offers the beginnings of a challenge to the hegemony of text and image as the primary communicative modes of the digital age.
We see that there is a level of irony in publishing a book focusing on an audio form that we advocate as disrupting, challenging and possessing the potential to reconfigure the traditions of academic discourse. However, thereās no denying that while cultures are changing, they are not quite changed yet. The written word is not only dominant, but also a vital and rewarding way of engaging with all cultures, including new aural ones. In the spirit of being true to the form though, this book has an accompanying podcast that discusses the themes, issues and ideas thrown up by this written collection.
This is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of academic work analysing the definition, status, practices and implications of podcasting within the broader context of digital media and cultural studies. It brings together the research of experienced and early career academics, along with practitioners of various types from a wide breadth of international contexts. Encompassing chapters that span a range of analytical and methodological approaches we envisage the entries here will be of interest to a range of scholars and students in what is an underdeveloped yet burgeoning area of enquiry. While the focus of chapters is diverse, the interrelationship between technological configuration, creative practice and conceptual understanding is an anchoring structure. Furthermore, for many of the authors, the digital milieu that has led to podcastingās current moment of mainstream cross-over has activated a philosophical interrogation of how information and knowledge is communicated. Many of the analyses here challenge the theorist/practitioner dichotomy and explore how podcasting facilitates autonomy and agency over oneās mediated self.
The third editor of this book, Richard Berry, joined in the early stages of the process and is a key voice in defining podcasting in relation to its closest familial progenitor: radio. As with the other editors, consumption of podcasts generated a curiosity in the form, not least in the questions it posed for radio both academically and industrially. Indeed, as time has passed more and more students with an interest in audio are gaining that passion through podcasts. The next section of the introduction maps out some of the core arguments and contextual parameters regarding the radio/podcast relationship from which research into podcasting has emerged. This provides the springboard from which we suggest that podcasting has transitioned into a new phase, a ānew aural cultureā, with its applications and effects requiring wider interdisciplinary conceptual approaches. We introduce some of the formative research that constitutes the starting point of a āpodcast studiesā before proceeding to set out how the chapters in this volume expand this nascent field. Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media is not intended as an exhaustive account, rather it offers a series of starting points and trajectories of enquiry which wrestle with podcastingās technological, industrial, cultural and social dynamics in the context of digital media.
Podcast v. Radio: An Uneasy Paternalism
Despite podcasting being around for over a decade, there is still an uneasiness in defining it as a medium. Richard Berry has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the contentious connecting tissue between podcasting and radio as the focus of his research. Whilst podcasting shares many auditory codes and production practices with radio, many of the chapters that follow outline the inherent differences that are beginning to emerge and be classified. In ma...