tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/podcasting-33639/articlespodcasting – The Conversation2023-09-01T06:32:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2089372023-09-01T06:32:55Z2023-09-01T06:32:55ZAustralia tops the world for podcast listening. Why do we love them so much?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545468/original/file-20230830-28-vpdtsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7360%2C4912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“We’re here because this moment demands an explanation.”</p>
<p>So begins the first ever episode of New York Times’ The Daily podcast, delivered by host Michael Barbaro in his now famous style. It arrived on Wednesday February 1, 2017 – less than a fortnight after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States.</p>
<p>By the end of Trump’s term, it was wildly popular, reportedly attracting some <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/04/media/the-daily-podcast/index.html">four million daily downloads</a> and referred to as the newspaper’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/30/hear-all-about-it-how-daily-news-podcasts-became-publishings-new-hope">new front page</a>”.</p>
<p>The Daily’s success inspired many other news outlets to develop podcasts, including in Australia, with the likes of ABC’s The Signal (since replaced by ABC News Daily), Schwartz Media’s 7am, and Guardian Australia’s Full Story launching from 2018.</p>
<p>According to 2023 data from The Infinite Dial – which tracks digital media use internationally – Australia has now surpassed the US <a href="https://www.commercialradio.com.au/Research/Infinite-Dial-Australia/2023">to be a world leader in podcast listening</a>, with 43% of the population aged 12 and over having listened to a podcast in the past month.</p>
<p>Australia also has the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/Digital_News_Report_2023.pdf">third highest rate of news podcast listening</a>, behind the US and Sweden, with 14% of news consumers listening to news podcasts in the past month.</p>
<p>Despite these trends, there’s been limited research on news podcast listening in Australia. My <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ajr_00120_7">recent research</a>, published in June, found news podcast listeners in Australia tend to be politically left-leaning, wealthier, and more highly educated than average.</p>
<p>I also found they tend to be politically active, and value news podcasts for enabling them to better participate in democratic life.</p>
<p>Interestingly, listeners didn’t appear to trust podcasts more than other forms of news in general, with 61.1% reporting “the same” level of trust. However, they reported a high level of trust in news they choose to consume.</p>
<p>The rise of news podcasts happened amid a volatile political climate. In 2023, as Trump prepares for another run for president, and with a political storm brewing in Australia as we approach a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament, there are good reasons to consider the role this podcast genre plays in democracy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obama-podcast-host-how-podcasting-became-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry-142920">Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry</a>
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<h2>From radio to podcast news</h2>
<p>Radio news developed slowly following the invention of mass broadcasting in the early 1920s. It began with announcers reading press agency reports on air, giving rise to an authoritative and detached presenting style, reflecting the journalistic value of objectivity. While formats have differed, this has characterised radio news for much of its history.</p>
<p>Podcasting emerged in the early 2000s out of the disruption caused by the internet, and particularly the ability of users to generate and share content.</p>
<p>The lack of time constraints compared to radio meant podcast episodes could go for any length. And because they could be downloaded, listeners could engage with content in their own time, on their own terms.</p>
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<p>Slate’s Political Gabfest (2005-) was one of the first “native” podcasts – that is, produced specially for digital consumption – exploring news and politics. But it wasn’t until 2014, with podcasting’s breakout moment in true-crime sensation Serial, that news podcasts began to take off.</p>
<p>The Daily grew out of the New York Times’ election podcast The Run-Up. It pioneered the format known as the “daily deep dive” – defined by the Reuters Institute <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-11/Newman%20and%20Gallo%20-%20Podcasts%20and%20the%20Impact%20of%20Coronavirus%20FINAL%20%282%29.pdf">as</a> “heavily produced using sound design and narrative storytelling techniques”.</p>
<p>Many news podcasts since have similarly deployed narrative storytelling and immersive sound design to explore issues in the news. This has been championed as offering a more “human” <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2021.1882874">approach</a> to the news, featuring personal presenting styles and the harnessing of emotion.</p>
<h2>Media fragmentation and politics</h2>
<p>Reuters’ 2023 Digital News Report <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/Digital_News_Report_2023.pdf">notes</a> how in the podcasting sphere “news jostles for attention with lifestyle and specialist shows”. This may explain the degree of ambivalence around trust in news podcasts, with a wide variety of offerings categorised as “news” in podcast players such as Apple Podcasts.</p>
<p>Podcasting is difficult to regulate, and there’s a risk of the medium being used to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/28/joe-rogan-hosts-alex-jones-on-spotify-podcast-despite-ban">spread dangerous messages</a>, as has happened across social media generally.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-is-rife-and-causing-deeper-polarisation-heres-how-social-media-users-can-help-curb-it-210189">Misinformation is rife and causing deeper polarisation – here's how social media users can help curb it</a>
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<p>In his <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Bruce-Wolpe-Trump's-Australia-9781761068096">new book</a>, Bruce Wolpe, Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre, considers what a second Trump presidency would mean for Australia. He notes the corrosive influence of Trump and his Fox News acolytes on public trust, and warns that Australia should prepare for an emboldening of the populist right-wing sentiment that accompanied his rise on the political scene.</p>
<p>In the face of this, independent and rigorous journalism, supported by a well-funded ABC, has an important role to play.</p>
<p>As my study highlights, it’s important to acknowledge news podcast listeners tend to be from the higher social classes. There’s an impetus, then, to ensure coverage includes the perspectives of those who might not otherwise be well represented across the media sphere.</p>
<p>This has particular importance in relation to issues like the upcoming referendum, with a risk of it being used to fan the flames of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/21/linda-burney-says-indigenous-voice-not-about-culture-wars-such-as-abolishing-australia-day">culture wars</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-joe-rogan-and-why-does-spotify-love-him-so-much-176014">Who is Joe Rogan, and why does Spotify love him so much?</a>
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<p>At their best, news podcasts can engage us meaningfully in important issues, transporting us to unexpected places and highlighting the human impact at the heart of news stories, supported by facts and informed analysis.</p>
<p>With Australians among the most active news podcast listeners globally, there’s reason to have hope they can play a productive role in helping us navigate politically uncertain times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Bird receives funding through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.</span></em></p>New research finds Australian listeners value news podcasts for enabling them to better participate in democratic life.Dylan Bird, PhD candidate, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1918112022-10-31T13:10:57Z2022-10-31T13:10:57ZPodcasting in Egypt - how feminist activism has emerged through shared stories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491644/original/file-20221025-3641-llifm3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Den Potisev/iStock/Getty Images Plus</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After more than a decade of teaching audio production to my college students in Cairo, it finally dawned on me that podcasts themselves can serve as teaching tools that highlight lessons in Egyptian society. I realised this because so many of my female students selected <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2021.2020286">feminist topics</a> or took feminist standpoints in their narrative nonfiction podcasts. </p>
<p>Though in the past I’ve written about <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346020915_Ideas_for_Incorporating_Podcasting_into_Your_Pedagogy">how I teach audio</a>, I’d never thought to focus on the content of my students’ podcasts. The idea of podcasts as digital activism resonated with me, particularly from a perspective of telling real life stories. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://medium.com/paradeim/a-brief-history-of-podcasting-2e73cfbca7d0">two decades of podcasting</a> out in the world, there’s an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448211021032">ever-growing</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00138398.2020.1852707">number</a> of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351273206-9/africa-demand-rachel-lara-van-der-merwe">research</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Catherine-Strong/publication/342876991_Pandemic_Podcasting_From_Classroom_to_Bedroom/links/5f0ac6f7a6fdcc4ca4635d89/Pandemic-Podcasting-From-Classroom-to-Bedroom.pdf">articles</a> about <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Digitalization-of-Culture-Through-Technology-Proceedings-of-the-International/Mishra-Samanta/p/book/9781032315478">podcasting</a> in Africa. But there is a need for much more academic analysis, which is why my co-author Yasmeen Ebada and I designed a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2021.2020286">research study</a> to focus on feminist-leaning podcasts and Egyptian female podcasters. Digital activism is, after all, part of the decade-old <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism/The-fourth-wave-of-feminism">fourth wave</a> of feminism. </p>
<p>We wanted to learn how the students adopted their knowledge of feminism, about the development of their feminist identities and about how podcasts were used for digital activism. Though we focused on <a href="https://soundcloud.com/ohradiogirl/sets/egyptian-female-podcasters">four female podcasters</a> as case studies, our research also provides context about when Egyptian women become aware of cultural and societal inequities, as well as when they begin to manifest their feminist ideals.</p>
<h2>Feminism in Egypt</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/patriarchy">Patriarchy</a>, which presumes that men are superior to women, is baked into Egyptian society on all levels – cultural, social, economic and political. Young women who speak out on just about anything for just about any reason are considered brave. The repercussions could be life altering, despite the relatively comfortable class status of university students.</p>
<p>Feminism in Egypt is not a new phenomenon. Young Egyptians have many role models who span decades of feminist activism. These range from the activist <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-44814874">Huda Sha'rawi</a> – the godmother of Egyptian feminism – to author and physician <a href="https://theconversation.com/nawal-el-saadawi-egypts-grand-novelist-physician-and-global-activist-157817">Nawal El Saadawi</a>, and contemporary feminist writer <a href="http://www.monaeltahawy.com/">Mona Eltahawy</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nawal-el-saadawi-egypts-grand-novelist-physician-and-global-activist-157817">Nawal El Saadawi: Egypt's grand novelist, physician and global activist</a>
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<p>And add to that list <a href="https://egyptianstreets.com/2020/09/20/meet-nadeen-ashraf-the-student-behind-egypts-anti-harrassment-social-media-revolution/">Nadeen Ashraf</a>. As a college student, she reignited the feminist activist flame in the summer of 2020 in Egypt. She used Instagram to document the sexual harassment and assault cases of a predator. Her case garnered <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/world/middleeast/egypt-metoo-sexual-harassment-ashraf.html">international attention</a> and prompted authorities to react swiftly. </p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>Our research was built on a sample of four <a href="https://soundcloud.com/ohradiogirl/sets/jrmc-award-winning-audio">publicly available podcasts</a> produced by female students at The American University in Cairo, where I’ve taught since 2009. We took a qualitative critical analysis approach to examine narration, sound bites from interviews, music and other podcast production elements. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/unXSbzRWaJ6ebgR98">feminist identity development model</a> was a good fit for the research project as it allowed us to better understand our podcasters’ knowledge of feminism and their intention to select a socio-cultural topic for their podcast. The model covers a five-step process from passive acceptance to active commitment. </p>
<h2>Our findings</h2>
<p>Feminist pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching) includes encouragement through professor and peer-led discussions. This enabled the podcasters to provocatively dissect traditional gender and socio-cultural norms. </p>
<p>Among the topics of the narrative nonfiction podcast episodes were stories of family involvement in matchmaking to get young women married into a well-off family. Another podcast addressed women’s participation in the 2011 Egyptian revolution.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="2568" data-image="" data-title="Four Egyptian female podcasters" data-size="61657155" data-source="ohioradiogirl on SoundCloud" data-source-url="https://soundcloud.com/ohradiogirl/sets/egyptian-female-podcasters" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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Four Egyptian female podcasters.
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<p>Our podcasters embodied diverse feminist perspectives, displaying multi-dimensional feminist origins. These included black, western and post-colonial feminist views. Their lived experiences are a welcome contribution to the Egyptian digital sphere as they provide a counter-narrative to traditional patriarchal norms. </p>
<p>The podcasters also fully exhibited the use of podcast affordances – such as sound and music, as well as tone, inflection and other nuances in delivery and narration – to enrich their nonfiction stories. Elements of storytelling strength were included in our analysis, focusing on the narrative and audience engagement. These are also some of the guiding criteria for <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/rdr/">RadioDoc Review</a>, which offers critiques of audio content.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>We found that our Egyptian female podcasters utilised multiple feminist ideals in their podcasts. This research demonstrates the power of podcasts as a tool for digital activism. Speaking about their experiences and opinions allows young Egyptian women to exercise an otherwise muted voice in society. Podcasts are a vehicle for this.</p>
<p>The limitations of this research is that our podcasters were mostly from the same social class and had a high level of education. A more diverse pool of podcasters would be ideal for future research on this topic.</p>
<p>The emerging field of podcast studies will continue to birth a wealth of insights about African society. As educators and scholars, we strongly encourage young African scholars not just to engage with research output on podcasting in Africa. They should also actively seek out collaborators and opportunities to globally amplify the work of the African podcast community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Fox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Africans are adopting podcasting as a way of telling their own stories. In one class in Egypt, this took a feminist turn.Kim Fox, Professor of Practice in Journalism and Mass Communication, American University in CairoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1821952022-05-03T13:09:26Z2022-05-03T13:09:26ZCNN+ was just the latest failed attempt of the cable news trailblazer to remain relevant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460579/original/file-20220429-18-t4jnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=439%2C36%2C4448%2C2887&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CNN's hyped streaming service folded after three weeks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-advertisement-for-cnn-is-displayed-in-manhattan-on-april-news-photo/1392815026?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It seems that any hope that legacy media had of recovering audiences was crushed by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/business/cnn-plus-shutting-down.html">recent and rapid collapse</a> of CNN’s streaming service, CNN+. </p>
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<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/cnn-was-just-the-latest-failed-attempt-of-the-cable-news-trailblazer-to-remain-relevant-182195&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>For the <a href="https://scholarworks.umass.edu/democratic-communique/vol31/iss1/3/">past decade</a>, viewers and listeners have gradually been abandoning legacy broadcast media, which refers to news media institutions established before the digital era, such as <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/587401-news-networks-see-major-viewership-drop-in-2021/#:%7E:text=Network%20news%20channels%20fared%20somewhat,News%E2%80%9D%20dropping%20by%2014%20percent.">ABC</a>, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/587401-news-networks-see-major-viewership-drop-in-2021/#:%7E:text=Network%20news%20channels%20fared%20somewhat,News%E2%80%9D%20dropping%20by%2014%20percent.">CBS</a>, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/public-broadcasting/">NPR</a> and <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/27/business/cable-news-lost-plenty-viewers-2021/">NBC</a>.</p>
<p>Audiences have instead gravitated toward nascent media makers that got their start on platforms like YouTube, Substack, Spotify and TikTok. The popular programming on these platforms – which includes “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-faith/id1531192509">Bad Faith</a>,” “<a href="https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/">Breaking Points</a>,” “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-katie-halper-show/id1020563127">The Katie Halper Show</a>,” “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-joe-rogan-became-podcastings-goliath-176124">The Joe Rogan Experience</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/thejimmydoreshow">The Jimmy Dore Show</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG29FnXZm4F5U8xpqs1cs1Q">Empire Files</a>,” “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/useful-idiots-with-matt-taibbi-and-katie-halper/id1476110521">Useful Idiots</a>” and “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-realignment/id1474687988">The Realignment Podcast</a>” – are collectively, and sometimes individually, drawing audiences as big as <a href="https://scholarworks.umass.edu/democratic-communique/vol31/iss1/3/">CNN’s primetime viewership</a>.</p>
<p>Since the 2020 election, the slide in ratings for many of the large networks has been particularly acute. The legacy media’s coverage of the Trump presidency had successfully reversed a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Future-of-the-Presidency-Journalism-and-Democracy-After-Trump/Jr/p/book/9781032070735">decadelong decline</a> of their audience size. But following the inauguration of President Joe Biden, <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/29/cnn-loses-nearly-half-viewers-2020-2021/">ratings for cable news plummeted</a>, with Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN losing 49%, 37% and 35% of their audience, respectively, between June 2020 and June 2021. CNN <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2022/02/21/cnns-ratings-collapse-prime-time-down-nearly-70-in-key-demo/?sh=8c080586dda0">lost nearly 70%</a> of viewers in the key demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds between January 2021 and May 2021. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1010392/rachel-maddow-renews-msnbc-deal-2021/">Cable news outlets’</a> response to declining cable viewership has been to supplement their core cable offerings with offshoot streaming services. MSNBC offered <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/07/peacock-expands-msnbc-content-1234793560/">additional content</a> from existing news personalities on Peacock, a streaming service launched by their parent company, NBC. In addition, MSNBC launched <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rachel-maddow-show/id294055449">a podcast version</a> of “The Rachel Maddow Show.” </p>
<p>But <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XE_UPwIAAAAJ&hl=en">as a media scholar</a>, I see these endeavors as exercises in futility, fueled in large part by a lack of self-awareness. In my view, legacy media’s shrinking audience size has more to do with their style of reporting and their misguided assumptions about what viewers want than the medium itself.</p>
<h2>CNN+ flames out</h2>
<p>After nearly a year of hype, CNN launched its digital streaming service, CNN+, on March 29, 2022. The cable news juggernaut planned to spend <a href="https://www.axios.com/cnn-plus-cuts-warner-brothers-discovery-1be0ac3a-6952-4af0-b8e2-03dd6ae0839c.html">US$1 billion</a> on the venture over four years. In addition to existing <a href="https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/cnn-unveils-its-full-programming-slate">CNN personalities</a> such as Kate Bolduan, Wolf Blitzer, Jake Tapper and Fareed Zakaria, CNN+ featured <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2022/03/27/chris-wallace-fox-departure-new-york-times-stelter-rs-vpx.cnn">Chris Wallace</a>, whom they poached from Fox News Channel.</p>
<p>The CNN+ project did not address polling that shows <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2021/02/20/fewer-americans-than-ever-before-trust-the-mainstream-media/?sh=58ff1c6b282a">less than half</a> of Americans trust <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2021/02/20/fewer-americans-than-ever-before-trust-the-mainstream-media/?sh=58ff1c6b282a">U.S. legacy media</a>, including <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/577828-poll-voters-generally-trust-abc-cnn-most-fox-news-least-among">CNN</a>. In fact, a 2022 study found that Americans had more faith in the <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/04/05/trust-media-2022-where-americans-get-news-poll">Weather Channel and BBC</a> than the cable news networks.</p>
<p>Instead, on CNN+, the network offered audiences what amounted to a digitized version of many of the same personality-driven content that was on CNN, with new offerings such “<a href="https://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2022/01/24/jake-tapper-cnn-plus/">Jake Tapper’s Book Club</a>” and “<a href="https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/cnn-announces-daily-programming-schedule-including-chris-wallace-at-6-pm-and-wolf-blitzer-at-730/503893/">Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace</a>,” hosted by the former Fox News anchor. </p>
<p>It is no wonder that a few weeks into its launch – and after spending <a href="https://www.axios.com/cnn-plus-cuts-warner-brothers-discovery-1be0ac3a-6952-4af0-b8e2-03dd6ae0839c.html">$300 million</a> on the streaming service – only <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/cnn-plus-low-viewership-numbers-warner-bros-discovery.html">10,000</a> of the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-13/cnn-is-said-to-surpass-100-000-subscribers-in-its-first-week">100,000</a> subscribers it had attracted were using the paid service daily. This made <a href="https://www.axios.com/cnn-plus-cuts-warner-brothers-discovery-1be0ac3a-6952-4af0-b8e2-03dd6ae0839c.html">CNN’s one-year goal of 2 million users</a>, and its four-year target of 18 million users, seem far-fetched.</p>
<p>Less than a month after the launch, the <a href="https://www.axios.com/cnn-plus-cuts-warner-brothers-discovery-1be0ac3a-6952-4af0-b8e2-03dd6ae0839c.html">production</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/warner-bros-discovery-lays-off-cnn-cfo-suspends-marketing-spend-axios-2022-04-19/">marketing</a> budgets for CNN+ were reduced and CNN’s chief financial officer was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/warner-bros-discovery-lays-off-cnn-cfo-suspends-marketing-spend-axios-2022-04-19/">laid off</a>. Then on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/business/cnn-plus-shutting-down.html">April 21, 2022</a>, it became official: CNN+ was suspending operations.</p>
<h2>The appeal of new media</h2>
<p>In announcing the shuttering of CNN+, the network said the service was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/21/media/cnn-shutting-down/index.html">“incompatible” with the plans of new management</a> after WarnerMedia, CNN’s former parent company, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/warnermedia-discovery-complete-merger-become-warner-bros-discovery-2022-04-08/">had merged with Discovery</a> in early April.</p>
<p>But as I see it, the crux of CNN’s problem is that the network failed to grasp that audiences are gravitating toward new media platforms precisely because they are not legacy media. </p>
<p>Some of <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Podcaster%27s+Dilemma%3A+Decolonizing+Podcasters+in+the+Era+of+Surveillance+Capitalism-p-9781119789888">the most popular alternative content</a> is programming that includes personalities that seem more authentic – and less scripted and robotic – than the hosts who appear on corporate news media programming. Unlike corporate media, these shows often avoid a <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/yale-researcher-thwarts-attempted-brian-stelter-dunk-on-fox-news-by-calling-out-cnn-for-partisan-coverage-filtering/">partisan</a> <a href="https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=student_scholarship">framing</a>, feature amateur production, present <a href="https://fair.org/home/medias-election-lesson-ambitious-dems-must-move-to-the-right/">good-faith</a> <a href="https://fair.org/home/blaming-workers-hiding-profits-in-primetime-inflation-coverage/">debates</a> and air long, in-depth segments about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/evening-news-election-2016-10">important</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/network-and-cable-news-largely-ignore-wave-anti-asian-violence">topics</a> <a href="https://fair.org/topic/cnn/">that</a> <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/">corporate</a> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-report_n_5064389">media</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/324190-former-cable-news-reporter-slams-networks-for-ignoring-yemen-crisis/">outlets</a> <a href="https://deadline.com/2013/07/broadcast-networks-ignore-wikileaker-bradley-manning-verdict-552498/#!">rarely</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/study-tv-news-shows-largely-ignore-historic-trade-negotiations">cover</a>.</p>
<p>Some stories that are widely covered on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g4xWtlKUAU">newer media</a> outlets get barely a mention on legacy networks. Take Chevron’s <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/28741/steven-donziger-chevron-oil-amazon-contamination-injustice/">surveillance</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/nobel-laureates-condemn-judicial-harassment-of-environmental-lawyer">legal action</a> against the human rights and environmentalist lawyer Steven Donzinger, who, a decade earlier, had successfully won the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/energy-environment/steven-donziger-chevron.html">largest judgment</a> ever made against an oil company.</p>
<p>Often, when cable news covers corporate malfeasence – such as the collusion between Big Tech and the National Security Administration exposed by the Whistleblower <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/10/politics/edward-snowden-profile/index.html">Edward Snowden</a> – it’s often discussed in short, <a href="https://fair.org/home/jeffrey-toobin-expert-on-bizarre-analogies/">trivial</a>,<a href="https://fair.org/home/see-spying-works/">slanted</a> <a href="https://fair.org/home/media-cheer-assanges-arrest/">segments</a>. Conversely, new media personalities such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DRVDq8cicg&t=31s">Krystal Ball, Halper, Kyle Kulinski</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efs3QRr8LWw">Rogan</a> have dedicated multiple hours of interviews to whistleblowers such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elEInqRzLgk">Snowden</a>.</p>
<p>The success of new media platforms contradicts many of the assumptions that legacy media, including CNN, have operated under to justify their approach to covering the news. For decades, legacy media defenders have claimed that audiences have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2018/01/21/trumps-impact-shorter-attention-spans-rs.cnn/video/playlists/atv-road-to-the-white-house-automated/">short attention spans</a> and are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/23/opinion/frum-cable-news/index.html">too ignorant</a> for complex ideas. However, <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Podcaster%27s+Dilemma%3A+Decolonizing+Podcasters+in+the+Era+of+Surveillance+Capitalism-p-9781119789888">in new media spaces</a>, audiences seem eager to access programs that spend hours deconstructing a single topic. </p>
<p>I believe there has also been an <a href="https://citylights.com/muckraking/u-s-of-distraction/">over-reliance</a> on graphics, flashy set designs and big-name guests to attract and keep viewers. In reality, low-budget content from regular people have proved to be wildly popular. For example, Dore and his partner, Stefane Zamorano, host the wildly popular “Jimmy Dore Show” <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/ct-ott-jimmy-dore-thalia-hall-ttd-0712-20190711-4leuqq3mwzbt5ep76rurat6fvy-story.html">from their garage</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man speaks into megaphone before crowd of protesters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460585/original/file-20220429-25-1nofmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jimmy Dore, speaking into a megaphone, hosts his popular political talk show from his garage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/comedian-and-host-of-the-jimmy-dore-show-jimmy-dore-speaks-news-photo/844361332?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For decades, cable news outlets have become comfortable casting the majority of their stories as part of an eternal struggle <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hate-inc/">between Republicans and Democrats</a>. The repeated use of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Lets-Agree-to-Disagree-A-Critical-Thinking-Guide-to-Communication-Conflict/Higdon-Huff/p/book/9781032168982">this frame</a> not only misleads, but also unnecessarily divides audiences. <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520347878/the-anatomy-of-fake-news">Fox News is viewed as conservative, CNN is liberal</a>, and viewers are expected to pick a side, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-media-encourages-and-sustains-political-warfare-100941">swinging along with wherever their favored network lands on an issue</a>. </p>
<p>But both networks are in the business of making money, and culture war issues such as immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage have proved useful for <a href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/52200941/JPLR.2009-authors_copy-paper-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1651508713&Signature=eTFDMwX5IPVTtqlyW%7EjZn2O-RJwPL97XDWTXvbvYdVbq4wHTw03p5oQBUhSL-l7b6srwakZfFVpBsFrBBqMWmqFUNVa2B2K2rDAINtI8cxcrHXLuu4Rg%7EmUU-qUr6AnG0-1OJhHXHf9piGJxYYvBfKzsm0oLbKDb7kvq2tdGqmSkUyaC2GEGPMBf6bu-bF32ApLQCV62BT441M47%7E4vahyS3wFxtfHUjINOqH7Y9cVPm1m0SdGKgFDiO7lWSMFooPMzsI4VOQ-8LSCuthnWDUzuvkgFemdiTG4kzWmhSkYi5EKRLoN2wZ16lhqsyl6GaElv-KNivX3Sc5hw9n2FArw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA">attracting</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BBYHEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA169&dq=%22news+media%22+%22culture+wars%22+cnn+immigration+abortion+same+sex&ots=LcyiMWImte&sig=NNb9hSdhvRZGkynM5wBvR3zfhaA#v=onepage&q&f=false">dividing</a> audiences.</p>
<p>New entrants don’t have this baggage, and seem more eager to rise above hackneyed partisanship.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>The credibility gap</h2>
<p>Most new media consumers are sophisticated enough to recognize that legacy media <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520347878/the-anatomy-of-fake-news">do spread falsehoods</a>. To be clear, there are a litany of falsehoods in <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520347878/the-anatomy-of-fake-news">new media and conservative corporate media</a>.</p>
<p>But for all of CNN’s posturing that they’re more trustworthy than networks like <a href="https://www.politifact.com/personalities/fox-news-channel/">Fox News</a>, its unforced errors keep piling up. In just the past five years, CNN incorrectly suggested the Hunter Biden laptop story was either <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/flashback-msnbc-cnn-cbs-told-viewers-hunter-biden-laptop-story-was-russian-disinformation/ar-AAVk1ZG">Russian or right-wing propaganda</a>, settled a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-viral-video/index.html">multimillion dollar</a> lawsuit over its reporting of an incident involving student Nicholas Sandmann and has been accused of spreading false stories about the <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/report-vermont-power-grid-infiltrated-by-russian-hackers/">Russians’</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/30/us/grizzly-steppe-malware-burlington-electric/index.html">hacking</a> of a Vermont <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2017/01/03/exp-power-company-detects-russia-linked-malware.cnn">power plant</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/15/russia-afghanistan-bounties-psaki-481990">putting</a> a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/29/politics/russia-bounties-presidential-daily-briefing/index.html">bounty</a> on U.S. soldiers and <a href="https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million?s=r">controlling</a> President Donald Trump with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cnn-just-cant-get-enough-trump-pee-tapes-story-joseph-curl">compromising information</a>.</p>
<p>Its credibility was further damaged in 2021 and 2022 when it was <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/jeff-zucker-cnn-resign-affair-cuomo-trump-1319698/">revealed</a> that the former head of CNN, Jeff Zucker, and former CNN personality Chris Cuomo were <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/the-zucker-cuomo-saga-just-got-even-messier">advising</a> Chris’ brother – then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – on how to respond to accusations of sexual harassment and political corruption. During that time, when the governor appeared on CNN, he did not face difficult questions about these alleged scandals. Instead, the siblings engaged in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thv_gJ4EpHw">lighthearted teasing</a>.</p>
<p>When it comes to expanding its audience, CNN has attempted everything short of transforming its content. CNN+ is simply CNN’s latest failed attempt to regain a sizable audience. To me, the evidence is pretty clear: If CNN wants to remain viable, it’s the content, not the medium, that needs to change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182195/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nolan Higdon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since the 2020 election, the slide in ratings for many large networks has been particularly acute. What’s driving this exodus, and where are viewers going?Nolan Higdon, Lecturer of History and Media Studies, California State University, East BayLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769442022-02-24T15:12:42Z2022-02-24T15:12:42ZJournalism has changed. Education must reflect the reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446241/original/file-20220214-97814-ojdbvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C52%2C528%2C325&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Traditional media, particularly print, are in decline as audiences move online.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Meinhardt / AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For more than a century, journalism education prepared young people for the role of full-time professionals employed by sizeable news organisations. But the advertising-based business model that sustained journalism is collapsing because of new technology, and jobs of the old kind are becoming scarce. The educational model, too, must change to accommodate the new realities. </p>
<p>Traditional media – particularly print – are in decline as audiences move online and revenue streams follow them to platform giants like Google and Facebook. As a result, titles have had to close and journalists have been retrenched. Sub-Saharan Africa, too, is affected by these global trends, as reflected in recent reports <a href="https://journalism.co.za/resources/state-of-the-newsroom/">on South Africa</a>, <a href="https://internews.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/2021-03/KMAReport_Final_20210325.pdf">Kenya</a> and <a href="https://medialandscapes.org/country/nigeria">Nigeria</a>.</p>
<p>The demand for journalism graduates is shrinking, while non-professionals play an increasing role in supplying society with information. As I argue in a <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/disrupted-media-disrupted-academy-rethinking-african-j-schools/">new paper</a>, journalism schools need to reorientate their courses to new kinds of students and adjust the curriculum for the new post-professional world of journalism. If they do not, they risk becoming irrelevant – if they do, a host of new opportunities present themselves.</p>
<h2>Teaching for a professional role</h2>
<p>Historically, journalism teaching emerged just over a century ago as journalists began to claim the status of professionals. The first journalism school in the US was founded in <a href="https://journalism.missouri.edu/the-j-school/the-j-school-legacy/">1908 at the University of Missouri</a>. Since then, students have enrolled in journalism courses expecting to obtain the necessary skills and knowledge to work as full-time professionals in a newsroom. </p>
<p>In Africa, too, journalism and communication schools have become common.</p>
<p>Researcher Alan Finlay writes in the introduction of <a href="https://journalism.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Mapping-Africa-Training-Centres-V6_09122020.pdf">a recent mapping study</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Journalism education and training in sub-Saharan Africa is flourishing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The study counted a total of 127 education providers in 19 countries, though he acknowledges that the exercise was limited. </p>
<p>But today’s journalism students are less likely to find full-time jobs as professional journalists. In the Global North, journalism has become “post-industrial, entrepreneurial and atypical”, as Dutch scholar <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Deuze2/publication/318780756_What_journalism_becomes/links/5bf8086ea6fdcc53881544cf/What-journalism-becomes.pdf">Mark Deuze</a> puts it. </p>
<p>The industrial age of journalistic media, with news produced by full-time professionals, looks like it is ending. Journalists are more likely to have to behave like entrepreneurs in the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0950017018785616">gig economy</a>, moving from one short-term contract to the next. It is a precarious existence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/false-story-about-decuplets-was-a-low-point-for-journalism-how-to-fix-the-damage-163814">False story about decuplets was a low point for journalism: how to fix the damage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Africa, journalism has been precarious for longer and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/tanzania-lifts-ban-four-newspapers-2022-02-10/">for other reasons</a>. Political pressures and fragile media economies mean that working for independent media is often freelance, with low and uncertain pay.</p>
<p>However, new opportunities emerge if journalism is thought of less as a profession, but rather as a practice. <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8N01JS7">A report from the Tow Centre</a> says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the journalism industry is dead but … journalism exists in many places.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Journalism, in the sense of finding, sifting and sharing important information, remains of crucial importance. But it is no longer under the sole control of professional journalists. News organisations remain important, but have to accept they are no longer information monopolies. Reliable information remains essential for societies to work, but it is produced by a range of people, not all of them in traditional newsrooms. </p>
<p>Others contribute kinds of journalism to the information ecosystem: a South African maths teacher, Sugan Naidoo, for instance, has made it his business to publish daily summaries of COVID-19 data <a href="https://twitter.com/sugan2503">on Twitter</a>. There is no indication he sees himself as a journalist, but his posts are more journalistic than some stories – such as that about <a href="https://theconversation.com/false-story-about-decuplets-was-a-low-point-for-journalism-how-to-fix-the-damage-163814">South Africa’s fictional decuplets</a> last year – and some other material published by mainstream media.</p>
<p>The quality of the information published matters a great deal – one of the challenges of the social media world is the amount of misinformation available. The difficulty of telling rubbish from worthwhile information has bred distrust of journalism. And that is where the crisis offers journalism schools in Africa – and arguably elsewhere – an opportunity.</p>
<h2>Reimagining journalism training</h2>
<p>Young people wanting to become full-time journalists are no longer the only people who want and need to learn journalistic skills. Others include people in community media, media entrepreneurs and “accidental journalists” – people who don’t see themselves as journalists but who contribute worthwhile information. At the same time, there is a substantial need for working journalists to update their skill sets for a rapidly changing world.</p>
<p>As the shrinking job market in many countries discourages young people from entering the field, there are also practical reasons for identifying new types of potential students. New groups of students bring fee income from new directions into cash-strapped universities.</p>
<p>Journalism schools also need to think about the curriculum. There is a need for old-school skills like verification and the ability to work out what is publicly important or “newsworthy”. There is a need for new technical skills, from <a href="https://datajournalism.com/read/handbook/one/introduction/what-is-data-journalism">data journalism</a> to podcasting and artificial intelligence. </p>
<p>Importantly, an expanded approach to journalism education is not just about technical skills, it must include critical thinking and self-awareness, while centring on established values of independence and public service. Journalism may emerge in all kinds of contexts, but unless it contributes value to public discussion it is simply noise. That is what sets it apart from other forms of communication.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonising-peace-journalism-and-putting-it-to-work-in-east-africa-139219">Decolonising peace journalism -- and putting it to work in East Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Overall, journalism schools have obligations that go beyond producing the next generation of young journalists. They can and should consider much more broadly what they can do to sustain and improve the health of the information systems around them. In African countries, the responsibility is particularly acute as there may be few other institutions able to play such a role. Research and an involvement in public discussion of media issues are just some of the ways they can contribute, and many already do so.</p>
<p>New opportunities and challenges will continue to emerge, and the task of reinvention will be ongoing. To remain relevant, journalism schools need to combine flexibility with a firm sense of society’s central and continuing need for reliable information.</p>
<p><em>This article is based on <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/disrupted-media-disrupted-academy-rethinking-african-j-schools/">a paper</a> written as a fellow of the <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/">Shorenstein Centre</a> for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Governance.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research for this paper was supported through a fellowship from the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Governance._</span></em></p>Today’s journalism students are less likely to find full-time jobs as professional journalists. The craft has become ‘post-industrial’, entrepreneurial and atypical.Franz Krüger, Adjunct Professor of Journalism and Director of the Wits Radio Academy, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1760142022-02-02T03:22:32Z2022-02-02T03:22:32ZWho is Joe Rogan, and why does Spotify love him so much?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443910/original/file-20220201-23-ogvkam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C56%2C1254%2C795&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Joe Rogan is described on <a href="https://www.joerogan.com/">his website</a> as “stand up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic, psychedelic adventurer, host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.” It’s the last of these that has really made his name, and for many audiences, made <a href="https://www.bookshop.unsw.edu.au/details.cgi?ITEMNO=9781742237022&14474163">the medium of podcasting</a> too. </p>
<p>Rogan’s podcast gets an estimated 200 million downloads each month, making him the most popular podcaster in the US.</p>
<p>When Spotify signed a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-podcast-deal-with-joe-rogan-11589913814?mod=e2tw">US$100 million</a> (A$140 million) deal with Rogan in 2020 for the exclusive rights to his podcast the industry took notice. Before this, podcasts were everywhere, and their “platform agnostic” status was central to their appeal for creators and audiences.</p>
<p>The deal was a gamble, but one based on the numbers. As music journalist Ted Gioia <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52736364">put it</a> in May 2020, “Spotify values Rogan more than any musician in the history of the world”. The reason? “A musician would need to generate 23 billion streams on Spotify to earn what they’re paying Joe Rogan for his podcast rights”. </p>
<p>Spotify can justify the spectacular outlay: there is a ton of advertising dollars to be made in spoken word audio, where podcasting is eating up what was once radio’s domain. Spotify’s other stellar podcast hosts include Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obama-podcast-host-how-podcasting-became-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry-142920">Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry</a>
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<h2>Why is Joe Rogan so popular?</h2>
<p>What’s important about Joe Rogan is also the type of listener he attracts. <a href="https://www.mediamonitors.com/audience-demographic-variations-specific-to-genre/">Media Monitors</a> says Rogan’s listenership is “71% male and evenly split between high school and post-secondary graduates. Some 57% of his audience reports earning over $50k per year, with 19% making over $100k”, with an average age of 24. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/my-joe-rogan-experience/594802/">The Atlantic</a> places gender at the heart of his appeal, suggesting “[Rogan] understands men in America better than most people do. The rest of the country should start paying attention.” </p>
<p>Prior to Rogan signing for Spotify, exclusivity in podcasting was unheard of. In 2001, US “media hacker” Dave Winer made public RSS, the Really Simple Syndication feed that could automatically “drop” a podcast episode online to a subscriber. Winer made the conscious decision to make RSS free and universal, in order to preserve a democratic ethos for podcasting similar to the recently created blogs he loved. </p>
<p>Signing an exclusive deal with Rogan could “make” Spotify as a podcasting platform of choice (and audio empire generally), or it could see Rogan lose fans who couldn’t be bothered to move with him. A study by <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22632213/joe-rogan-experience-spotify-exclusive-audience-reach">The Verge</a> showed Rogan gained fans when he first made the exclusive podcasting deal. </p>
<p>Part of Rogan’s appeal is his rawness – with episodes regularly two to three hours long and with minimal (if any) editing. He says what he thinks and feels <a href="https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/joe-rogan-explains-why-he-often-says-things-he-doesnt-agree-with-on-jre-podcast-1564678/">in the moment</a>, harnessing the compelling emotional power of the voice in a similar way to the great radio broadcasters of any age. </p>
<h2>So, what’s the problem?</h2>
<p>Rogan often makes pernicious claims. One ironic example occurred when <a href="https://junkee.com/joe-rogan-gruen-ad-propaganda/313694">Rogan circulated a fake ad made by Gruen</a> to represent Australia’s pandemic propaganda – made funnier given the ad parodied people who relied on Rogan’s advice rather than medical professionals. </p>
<p>He added a correction, albeit a small one, and these types of <a href="https://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/joe-rogan-fan-says-fuck-neil-young-sweet-caroline-is-overrated-anyway/">mistakes have become memes</a> since then. </p>
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<p>Far more seriously, Rogan has peddled egregious conspiracy theories and disinformation. He amplified disgraced radio host Alex Jones, who had spread a lie that the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen (apparently causing <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54733252">internal conflict at Spotify</a> last year as a result). </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/joe-rogan-wrapped-year-covid-19-misinformation-right-wing-myths-and-anti-trans">a report by Media Matters</a>, which studied the Joe Rogan Experience for a year, Rogan regularly trafficks misinformation and bigotry. The author drew particular attention to Rogan’s “right-wing misinformation and bigotry”, “anti-trans rhetoric” and “COVID-19 misinformation”. </p>
<p>A collection of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/covid-misinformation-joe-rogan-spotify-petition-1282240/">medical professionals</a> have campaigned against misinformation on the platform, and artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have <a href="https://theconversation.com/neil-youngs-ultimatum-to-spotify-shows-streaming-platforms-are-now-a-battleground-where-artists-can-leverage-power-175732">removed their work</a> from Spotify. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neil-youngs-ultimatum-to-spotify-shows-streaming-platforms-are-now-a-battleground-where-artists-can-leverage-power-175732">Neil Young’s ultimatum to Spotify shows streaming platforms are now a battleground where artists can leverage power</a>
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<p>In response, Spotify have finally released some “<a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-01-30/spotify-platform-rules/">platform rules</a>”, but they are generalised statements that avoid infringing the freedom of creators such as Rogan. </p>
<p>Most important in all of this is the audience. Rogan maintains he is just a comedian having long form conversations. This sounds fine on the surface (and similar to the infamous “<a href="https://dl.nfsa.gov.au/module/100/">not a journalist, but an entertainer</a>” claims made by Australian shock jocks John Laws and Alan Jones), but in practice Rogan’s words are heard by many more people than the average comedian just having a chat. </p>
<h2>Podcasting’s wild west</h2>
<p>Podcasting is still the relative wild west as an industry and medium. With ties to both the <a href="https://podcastbookers.com/history-of-podcasting/">music industry and radio</a>, podcasting remains mostly unregulated and diverse. </p>
<p>In a podsphere that now counts around three million titles, multi-million dollar projects with immaculate audio production and slick scripting co-exist alongside amateurs uploading rambling, barely audible chats. A near-global and cross-platform phenomenon, podcasting often evades the laws of any one jurisdiction. </p>
<p>Dave Winer’s open origin principle for podcasts has been at stake since Joe Rogan sold his name to Spotify. The question now is: where does editorial freedom sit? Should podcasters be regulated? And if so, how? </p>
<p>In response to the recent Spotify controversy Rogan <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/31/22910039/joe-rogan-response-neil-young-joni-mitchell-spotify">says he is</a> “not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective”. But as a public figure with such a large platform, should he really give equal weight to voices that clearly have unequal evidence to support them?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spotifys-response-to-rogan-gate-falls-short-of-its-ethical-and-editorial-obligations-176022">Spotify's response to Rogan-gate falls short of its ethical and editorial obligations</a>
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<p><em>Correction: an earlier version of this article may have implied Joe Rogan agreed the Sandy Hook school shooting didn’t occur, the wording has been changed to remove this imputation. It also erroneously stated his podcast attracts 200 million listeners, rather than downloads.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh received funding from the Australian Research Council to produce the podcast Heart of Artness, about crosscultural relationships in the production of Australian Aboriginal art. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Giuffre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joe Rogan’s show has become a flashpoint for discussions on what should be allowed on podcasts – here’s who he is, and why he is so talked about.Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology SydneySiobhan McHugh, Honorary Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communications, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1707812021-12-28T19:22:32Z2021-12-28T19:22:32ZRiver stories, culture wars, share house sagas: 5 of the best podcasts of 2021<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434939/original/file-20211201-19-m2e3z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C205%2C4860%2C3022&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The podcast Guardians of the River traverses the Okavango River from its source in Angola to its discharge into the Botswana Delta 1500 kilometres later</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been another huge year for podcasts, with a rise in both fictional and celebrity-hosted podcasts, along with the perennial true crime ones. Themes of diversity, social justice, environmental issues and cancel culture were also prominent this year.</p>
<p>Here, then, are five of the best podcasts of 2021 – and some suggestions for companion listening.</p>
<h2>1. <a href="https://www.futuromediagroup.org/suave/">Suave</a></h2>
<p>From Serial to Ear Hustle (produced inside San Quentin prison) to Darwin’s Birds Eye View, the podcast medium has allowed us to fully hear prisoners’ stories, without any prior judgement based on their appearance. Suave extends the tradition with a deep dive into the story of a Latino-American man called David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, sentenced to life imprisonment at Graterford State Correctional Institution, Pennsylvania, aged just 17. </p>
<p>It turns out that like other juveniles in that state, he pleaded guilty rather than be subject to a potential death penalty. Journalist Maria Hinojosa tracks Suave’s story over decades, until a new ruling means he may find freedom, at almost 50. A penetrating exploration of prison psychology, this podcast is anchored in a complex relationship between a journalist and her source.</p>
<p><strong>Companion listening</strong>: In the Dark, Series 2, <a href="https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2020/10/14/in-the-dark-s2e20">Episode: Curtis Flowers</a>.
Years of investigation by this podcast team helped obtain the release of a Mississippi man, Curtis Flowers, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years partly due to a racist district attorney. This long-awaited interview with a freed Curtis reveals a man who is sad, charming, clear-eyed and remarkably free of bitterness. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obama-podcast-host-how-podcasting-became-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry-142920">Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry</a>
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<h2>2. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m0011cpr">Things fell apart</a></h2>
<p>Jon Ronson, the Louis Theroux of podcasting, provides a historical take on the culture wars in this carefully crafted BBC podcast (dropping Feb 9 in Australia). In the first five episodes (all I’ve heard), Ronson deploys his trademark ability to scratch a big theme and find the quirky human stories that flip common perceptions. </p>
<p>A televangelist espouses gay rights at the height of AIDS; the censoring of progressive school literature in America in the ‘60s gives way to a woke backlash decades on against a seminal black memoir; a reformed anti-abortion crusader rues his propaganda; and a 1980s proto-Q-anon-style conspiracy that sent an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00120vp">innocent childcare worker</a> to jail for years shows that framing a victim does not need online hysteria. The series provides sobering context for the conflicts that have been so amplified by social media anarchy, delivered with a kind of wry wonder at our inhumanity.</p>
<p><strong>Companion listening</strong>: The Eleventh from Pineapple Studios documents horrifying tales of contemporary cancel culture in its first series, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inbox-part-1-emily/id1566642706?i=1000531695503">The Inbox</a>, while <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1033-limited-capacity">Limited Capacity </a>from CBC is a more playful take on internet predations.</p>
<h2>3. <a href="https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/shithole-country">S***hole country</a></h2>
<p>The title derives from then President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946">vicious description</a> of Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries in 2018. This spurred young Ghanaian-American Afia Kaakyire to delve into family history and self-discovery, telling “true tales dipped in entrepreneurial dreams, green card anxieties, complicated love”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434942/original/file-20211201-23-iupys6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A slur from Donald Trump has sparked a wonderful podcast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Though her name is made-up (for obvious reasons), Afia’s voice is utterly authentic. She chronicles with honesty and irony her ambivalent, evolving relationship with Ghana and her extended family, in a wide-ranging essay-memoir produced to the excellent standards we associate with the Radiotopia network of independent artists. Episode 3, in which she interviews her remarkable mother, Agnes, about her long journey to becoming a property-owner in New York, is a standout. And unlike many narrative podcasts, the ending doesn’t disappoint: the final two episodes positively sizzle.</p>
<p><strong>Companion listening:</strong> <a href="https://crackdownpod.com/">Crackdown</a> shares themes of being Other and wishing to be truly seen. This activist Canadian podcast is hosted by Garth Mullins, a drug user who is also a professional radio reporter. In collaboration with a community of drug users in Vancouver, the podcast robustly advocates for opioids and other drugs to be made legal, styling itself as “the drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents”.</p>
<h2>4. <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/guardians-of-the-river/id1568538601">Guardians of the river</a></h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434941/original/file-20211201-25-178os0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Okavango river.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>This epic podcast traverses the Okavango River from its source in Angola to its discharge into the Botswana Delta 1500 kilometres later, through the eyes of local keepers and scientists dedicated to its conservation. Funded by the National Geographic Society and others, it’s a sound-rich portrait of the river as a vital, living artefact, narrated by two engaging African scientists who are emotionally and environmentally connected to it.</p>
<p><strong>Companion listening</strong>: <a href="https://www.sceneonradio.org/the-repair/">The Repair</a> Season 5 of the always-on-the-Zeitgeist <a href="http://www.sceneonradio.org/about/">Scene On Radio </a>tackles the climate emergency, starting at the Book of Genesis, which exhorted man to “subdue” nature.</p>
<h2>5. <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4ZPGYUvSagQCEjBLkgt2fd">Housewarming</a></h2>
<p>Sometimes the Big Topics get a bit overwhelming and it’s nice to be reminded of what podcasting means to many: a chumcast/chatcast, where a couple of pals shoot the breeze on whatever takes their fancy. Countless chatcasts dabble in sport, pop culture and TV recaps. </p>
<p>With corporate heavies like Spotify, Audible and lately Facebook, muscling in on the medium, it’s refreshing to hear two homegrown Aussies randomly ruminating on a very pertinent theme – surviving the share house and riding out the rental crisis. Hosts Marty Smiley and Nat Demena have lots of fun with Karen bin nazis,(entitled white women who police bins on streets), food-tamperers and housemates that never flush.</p>
<p><strong>Companion listening:</strong> Helen Garner <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/commercial/abc-audiobooks-to-stream-on-abc-listen/13549838">reading</a> Monkey Grip, her own tale of toxic share houses, set in Melbourne in the ‘70s. Deliciously observed, this gritty urban anthropology (disguised as a novel) makes you realise not much has changed, despite the internet. Free on ABC Listen app, or on Audible. </p>
<p><em>Siobhan McHugh’s book <a href="https://booksfromaustralia.com/book/the-power-of-podcasting/">The Power of Podcasting</a> will be released in February.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh is Consulting Producer on The Greatest Menace, a queer true crime history podcast launching Feb 2022 on Audible.</span></em></p>With some three million podcasts out there, how to know which ones to choose? Here are our expert picks for summer listening.Siobhan McHugh, Honorary Associate Professor, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1612742021-06-24T20:10:16Z2021-06-24T20:10:16ZPodcasting overcomes hurdles facing unis to immerse students in the world of workers’ experiences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407797/original/file-20210623-26-1w1zxe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5742%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pensive-woman-wearing-wireless-headphones-relaxing-1953753604">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Podcasting is helping to revolutionise tertiary education. Universities have found themselves caught between shrinking budgets and an official insistence that they make graduates job-ready. Academics have had to be creative and flexible about how they engage their students with crucial learning, and podcasting is one way to do this. </p>
<p>In the past year, universities have been <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/australian-pm-no-special-deal-universities-bailouts">denied JobKeeper</a> payments to retain staff, seen the government’s “<a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/job-ready">job-ready graduates</a>” funding and tuition fee changes <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-making-job-ready-degrees-cheaper-for-students-but-cutting-funding-to-the-same-courses-141280">prioritise some disciplines</a> over others, and then had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/13/australian-universities-brace-for-ugly-2022-after-budget-cuts">funding cut</a> despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-hopes-of-international-students-return-fade-closed-borders-could-cost-20bn-a-year-in-2022-half-the-sectors-value-159328">international student revenue losses</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the constraints of this post-COVID world, universities must still produce graduates for the caring professions <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/gender-indicators-australia/latest-release">dominated by women</a>, such as health and community services, that we arguably need most. The budget did increase funding for sectors such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/budget-package-doesnt-guarantee-aged-care-residents-will-get-better-care-160611">aged care</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-extra-1-7-billion-for-child-care-will-help-some-it-wont-improve-affordability-for-most-160163">child care</a> – but what about the education of the future workers needed to provide social services? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/big-spending-recovery-budget-leaves-universities-out-in-the-cold-160439">Big-spending 'recovery budget' leaves universities out in the cold</a>
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<p>The business world has been talking about “pivoting” in the post-COVID environment, and academics have had to do the same. Universities have been known for their large lecture theatres, but these are <a href="https://theconversation.com/lecture-theatres-to-go-the-way-of-the-dodo-9893">no longer acceptable</a> in a world of social distancing. </p>
<p>Instead, university courses are now being taught either remotely, with students studying from home, or in a blended fashion involving a combination of home engagement and smaller face-to-face classes. Academics have had to meet the challenge with shorter pre-recorded lectures, smaller classes and flexible modes of delivery that students can engage with from home. </p>
<p>This has been easier for some degrees than for others. It’s a challenge for health and social sector degrees, such as social work and human services, that have a large practical component. </p>
<p>We know the best way to teach a student to work with people is to have them work with people. In the current climate, this has become more difficult. </p>
<p>Despite these challenges, academics have found it’s possible to teach core practice skills remotely. Using technologies such as podcasting is one way to prepare students for eventually working with people. </p>
<h2>Why are academics choosing podcasting?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/10713/podcast-listeners-in-the-united-states/">popularity of podcasting</a> has <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/308947">increased in recent years</a> as a direct and accessible way to consume large amounts of content, and this includes its use in education. Increasing numbers of education-focused podcasts are appearing on free online platforms. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obama-podcast-host-how-podcasting-became-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry-142920">Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Members of the Social Work Stories Podcast team" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Social Work Stories team has been creating podcasts tailored to students’ needs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>It has been a natural step for academics to use these podcasts in their teaching. They are also creating their own podcast content. This ensures these podcasts are discipline-specific and tailored to their students’ needs.</p>
<p>Podcasting has the potential not only to tell stories for passive listening, but also to engage the listener in the practice of <a href="https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-thinking-helps-kids-learn-how-can-we-teach-critical-thinking-129795">critical thinking</a>. Critical thinking is highly regarded across disciplines as a key graduate attribute that contributes to a job-ready workforce. </p>
<p>It is crucial in the flexible study environment that students are able to engage in critical thinking, regardless of where that study takes place. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-thinking-helps-kids-learn-how-can-we-teach-critical-thinking-129795">Thinking about thinking helps kids learn. How can we teach critical thinking?</a>
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<p>The discipline of social work, taught at universities across Australia, is no exception. As an allied health profession employed largely in the health and community services sector, current circumstances have had direct impacts on social work practices and education. Job-ready graduates need to have professional practice skills built into their studies.</p>
<h2>The Social Work Stories Podcast</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://socialworkstories.com">Social Work Stories Podcast</a> showcases examples of de-identified cases from the coalface. The hosts analyse the anonymous social workers’ stories. Drawing out the complexities of social work practice enables listeners to critically engage with the content along the way. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://socialworkstories.com">The Social Work Stories Podcast</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Listeners are asked to “listen out” for theories that are being used, or moments of practice dilemmas or inspiration. In this way they are getting a taste of the experience of social work. </p>
<p>In one episode a social worker discusses the dilemmas involved in providing end-of-life care in hospital. In another a social worker discusses the challenges of providing information on consent to a group of male adolescents. It is as though listeners themselves are working on the cases being discussed. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-are-in-a-bubble-that-is-set-to-burst-why-urgent-support-must-be-given-to-domestic-violence-workers-141600">'We are in a bubble that is set to burst'. Why urgent support must be given to domestic violence workers</a>
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<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="266" data-image="" data-title="Social Work Stories audio clip" data-size="8527956" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2189/sw-stories-promo.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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Social Work Stories audio clip.
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>8.13 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2189/sw-stories-promo.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
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<p>The Social Work Stories Podcast comes from a collaboration between the University of Wollongong and social work practitioners. It now has an international reach of 96 countries and more than 250,000 downloads. Social work graduate programs regularly use the podcast in their curriculum across Australia. </p>
<p>Podcasting has allowed academics to be creative in their course delivery despite the political and financial pressures on the sector. It offers one way forward in a difficult time for academia in Australia. </p>
<p>The Social Work Stories Podcast is available on iTunes and Spotify, with Twitter handle and Instagram @SOWKStoriesPod.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/podcasts-and-cities-youre-always-commenting-on-power-114176">Podcasts and cities: 'you’re always commenting on power'</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mim Fox receives funding from the National Health & Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>Tight funding and COVID-related limits on face-to-face contact have forced academics to find other ways to expose students to the real-life work they are preparing them for.Mim Fox, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1603182021-05-13T12:36:12Z2021-05-13T12:36:12ZApple threatens to upend podcasting’s free, open architecture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400339/original/file-20210512-14-1tdcwwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2117%2C1406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Creators will now have the option to require a payment for audiences to access their content on Apple's platform.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/ear-phones-on-top-of-money-symbolizing-that-you-can-royalty-free-image/1217461301?adppopup=true">Ramyr_Dukin/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in 2005, an ebullient Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/06/28Apple-Takes-Podcasting-Mainstream/">announced the integration of podcasting</a> into Version 4.9 of its desktop iTunes software, calling podcasting “TiVo for radio.” </p>
<p>Sixteen years later, during its April 20, 2021, “Spring Loaded” event, Apple has once again signaled a long-term corporate commitment to podcasting. But this time, instead of introducing listeners to the medium, Apple is creating the technical infrastructure for paid subscriptions through its Apple Podcasts service. </p>
<p>Creators will now have the option to require a payment for audiences to access their content on Apple’s platform, with <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/20/apple-to-take-reported-30-cut-from-podcast-subscriptions">Apple taking a 30% cut of the revenue</a>. </p>
<p>Paid subscriptions aren’t new. But as scholars who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ybOY0QgAAAAJ&hl=en">the podcasting industry</a>, we believe the integration of paid subscriptions into podcasting’s most powerful platforms could reshape the medium in significant ways.</p>
<h2>Millions introduced to podcasting</h2>
<p>In 2005, Apple brought podcasting into the mainstream by making the medium visible and instantly available. Transforming iTunes into a sophisticated podcatcher – software that allows users to locate and download audio files – made it easy for users to access podcast shows. It did this by allowing users to easily find and add podcast <a href="https://rss.com/blog/how-do-rss-feeds-work/">RSS feeds</a>, which give people the opportunity to automatically access new episodes as they’re released.</p>
<p>Once it began installing the now-iconic purple <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/25/thanks-to-serial-apples-podcasts-app-baked-into-ios-8-podcast-listens-grow-18">Apple Podcasts app by default on iPhones in late 2014</a>, many listeners discovered podcasting for the first time, <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2015/">leading to major audience growth</a>. Currently there is a proliferation of podcast apps to discover and listen to podcasts; most of them can be used at no cost to the consumer.</p>
<p>To this day, <a href="https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog/podcast-directories">Apple has by far the largest podcast directory</a>, which serves both as a gateway to tens of thousands of new podcasts and as an archive of the medium’s history by storing the RSS feeds of shows no longer releasing new episodes. </p>
<h2>The grassroots podcasting boom</h2>
<p>Apple’s initial foray into podcasting was guided by its broader strategy to increase the value of its iPod devices, which were <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/23/13359534/ipod-mini-nano-touch-shuffle-15-years-visual-history-apple">first released in 2001</a>. The goal was to entice consumers by offering an entire universe of free audio content. </p>
<p>But Jobs’ vision of podcasting as essentially time-shifted radio was ultimately shortsighted. </p>
<p>What he didn’t anticipate was the explosion of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2008.10722139">user-generated content</a> that universally expanded the availability of audio content. In fact, podcasting’s vibrancy has a lot to do with the sheer diversity of its voices and <a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/super-niche-podcasts/">ultra-niche content</a>, thanks largely to the relatively low barriers to entry for creators. </p>
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<img alt="A zoom-in of Apple's purple podcast icon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400331/original/file-20210512-21-4igwfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Apple started automatically installing a podcast app on its iPhones in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-podcast-application-is-seen-on-an-apple-ipad-on-october-news-photo/865878444?adppopup=true">Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Producing a podcast can be as simple as recording audio on your computer or mobile phone, uploading the content to a podcast hosting service, and then making sure that your show is listed with the major directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. </p>
<p>While there is generally a small fee charged by hosting companies for storing audio files and managing your feed, a service like Anchor – <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/14/spotify-gimlet-anchor-340-million/">purchased by Spotify for US$140 million in 2019</a> – uploads and lists podcasts for free, and has been the engine of massive podcast growth for Spotify. Users launched <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/2/21755151/spotify-podcasts-anchor-stats-data-wrapped-2020">1 million new podcasts via Anchor in 2020 alone</a>. Because RSS is an open web standard, listeners can access podcast content for free on any app or device they choose, from smart speakers to their car dashboards.</p>
<h2>Spotify gets exclusive</h2>
<p>Back in 2005, since Apple’s core business was selling hardware – at the time, iPods, Mac computers and, later, iPhones – the company took a relatively hands off approach to the emerging medium.</p>
<p>Rather than act as a content impresario, Apple’s iTunes instead operated chiefly as a convenient online storefront for free content that passed through audio files. Unlike its music store counterpart, however, Apple did not allow any financial transactions to take place around podcast content. </p>
<p>Paid subscriptions and other forms of monetization were therefore left to in-show advertising, merchandising and crowdfunding. Jealously guarding its status as an industry privacy leader, Apple didn’t even allow podcast creators to access listening data, like audience demographics or how long users listened to an episode <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/06/apples-new-analytics-for-podcasts-mean-a-lot-of-change-some-good-some-inconvenient-is-on-the-way/">until 2017</a>. And this was mainly in response to sophisticated audience dashboards being launched by competitors like Spotify and Google.</p>
<p>As rival Spotify moved into the space and began to secure exclusive contracts with top podcasters like <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2018-08-22/the-joe-budden-podcast-lands-exclusive-partnership-with-spotify/">Joe Budden</a> and <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-05-19/the-joe-rogan-experience-launches-exclusive-partnership-with-spotify/">Joe Rogan</a>, Apple’s preeminence as the top destination for podcast listeners was threatened. For Spotify, making exclusive podcast deals with high-profile talent was a means to draw ears into their ecosystem and keep them there. </p>
<p>Spotify’s strategy has begun to pay off, as <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/02/spotify-podcast-listeners-to-top-apples-for-the-first-time-in-2021-forecast-claims/">U.S. listenership on their podcast app is expected to surpass Apple’s in 2021</a>. It has already surpassed Apple <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/file/0022/217741/ofcom-podcast-survey-2021-full-spss.sav">in the U.K</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Apple enters the content business</h2>
<p>At risk of being sidelined, Apple’s status as podcasting’s benevolent absentee landlord has changed.</p>
<p>For the first time, paid subscriptions will exist on its platform. Apple will allow creators to place their podcasts behind a paywall via the Apple Podcasts app. Podcasters have, for the most part, <a href="https://www.engadget.com/apples-podcast-subscriptions-are-a-mixed-blessing-133008360.html">welcomed the move</a>. Now they can easily monetize their content on the podcast platform with the most listeners, though with a hefty surcharge applied.</p>
<p>Rather than an all-or-nothing approach, Apple has decided to allow podcasters to decide <a href="https://podnews.net/update/apple-podcast-subscriptions-hello">whether their content is exclusive to Apple</a>, or whether it will appear outside of the Apple Podcast app. However, <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesCridland/status/1385030004531073026">as many podcasters have discovered</a>, this system has been turned “off” by default.</p>
<p>What does this all mean for podcasting? </p>
<p>The big takeaway here is that Apple, by taking a cut of the creators’ premium content on Apple Podcasts, is now firmly in the content business. <a href="https://ossacollective.com/spotify-exclusive-podcasts/">Like Spotify</a>, we can expect more exclusive shows for Apple Podcasts.</p>
<p>For the first time, Apple will also be storing audio files on its servers, making it a first-party podcast host, and likely stealing some business from the remaining independent third-party podcast-hosting providers that also offer premium podcast services, such as Libsyn and Blubrry.</p>
<p>A medium that exploded due to the lack of institutional gatekeepers is now seeing big tech companies act like traditional media networks, signing popular hosts and shows to exclusive contracts. Of course, other publishers like <a href="https://slate.com/podcasts">Slate</a> and <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/premium">Stitcher</a> have offered subscriptions to their shows via their own websites and mobile apps. But the much larger audience share of Apple Podcasts and Spotify has much greater potential to move the podcast ecosystem in the direction of premium paid content.</p>
<p>This presents a potential long-term threat to the free, open architecture of podcasting, though projects like <a href="https://podcastindex.org/">The Podcast Index</a> are aiming to preserve the medium as platform-agnostic.</p>
<p>One thing is for certain: Apple and Spotify have given us a glimpse of a podcasting future where the walled gardens of platform-exclusive, premium content become the norm.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Fox has received funding from AMICAL.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Sullivan and Richard Berry do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Podcasting exploded due to the lack of gatekeepers. Now big tech companies are starting to act like traditional media networks, signing popular hosts to exclusive contracts and establishing paywalls.John Sullivan, Professor of Media and Communication, Muhlenberg CollegeKim Fox, Professor of Practice in Journalism and Mass Communication, American University in CairoRichard Berry, Senior Lecturer in Radio, University of SunderlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1502122020-12-08T15:18:01Z2020-12-08T15:18:01ZPenny dreadfuls were the true crime podcasts of their time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373582/original/file-20201208-19-1aarxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C748%2C445&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Host of popular true crime podcast Serial, American journalist Sarah Koenig.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/16029671559">Penn State/Flikr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A young man named Rob hears a voice in his earbuds. It belongs to his favourite true-crime podcast host, Matthias. Like all good podcast hosts, Matthias takes pride in addressing his audience as individuals, developing a rapport and a trustworthy intimacy. So when Matthias tells Rob to murder women, Rob obeys.</p>
<p>This isn’t a true story but the plot of the 2017 audio drama <a href="https://www.11thhouraudio.com/monsters-game/">Monster’s Game</a>. But like all good fiction, this horror story has a basis in reality: our contemporary, <a href="https://www.stylist.co.uk/entertainment/podcasts/true-crime-podcasts-why-are-we-all-obsessed/412453">sometimes ghoulish fascination</a> with true-crime podcasts. The 19th century had a similar macabre popular fascination, the penny dreadful. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, people enjoyed a tale of murder and woe as much as we do now. From their complicated relationship with journalism to their love of sensationalism, the two forms have a lot in common.</p>
<h2>Fake murders and violent crimes</h2>
<p>Penny dreadfuls arose in Britain the 1830s <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls">due to a growing number of readers and improved printing technology</a>. The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2597594?seq=1">penny post and railway distribution</a> also played a part. While literacy levels are hard to establish, by the 1870s, most of the working class <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40985739?seq=1">could read well enough</a> to read a newspaper. </p>
<p>This explosion of crime literature gave a bewildered populace the erroneous impression that violent crime (especially murder) was increasing, as historian <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40985739?seq=1">Christopher A Casey</a> notes. This led to many believing that cities had never been more dangerous to live in and had startling implications for criminal justice in Britain. For instance, capital punishment, which had almost disappeared in the 1840s and 1850s, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40985739?seq=1">was reinstated</a> in 1863.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Illustration of Sweeney Todd murdering a victim in his barber's chair from A String of Pearls." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373574/original/file-20201208-22-1n3hf3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration of Sweeney Todd murdering a victim in A String of Pearls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful#/media/File:Sweeney_Todd_murdering_a_victim.png">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With so much printed material on violent crime, it’s perhaps not surprising that the penny bloods (<a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls">renamed penny dreadfuls</a> in the 1860s) were so incredibly popular. The name change is thought to have happened because of the shift from tales of highwaymen and Gothic adventure to true crime, especially murder. And if there weren’t enough real crimes, the writers invented them, as with, most famously <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-string-of-pearls-or-the-barber-of-fleet-street">The String of Pearls</a>, which was the first story to introduce the demon barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd.</p>
<p>Serialised, short, printed on flimsy paper, cheap and luridly illustrated, penny dreadfuls were issued weekly to a large eager audience. There were a <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls">100 publishers</a>,) of penny-fiction and magazines between 1830 and 1850 and by the 1880s there were 15 periodicals <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2597594?seq=1">competing simultaneously</a>.</p>
<p>Casey links the newspaper era that parallels the rise of the penny dreadful with the gestation of the 19th century idea of “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecn012#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20New%20Journalism%2C%E2%80%9D%20a,working%20class%20and%20female%20readers.">new journalism</a>”. Coined by cultural critic, the term refers to a wide range of changes in British newspaper and magazine content, which sought to make print culture more accessible to working class and female readers. This included a shift away from political news coverage to wider reporting on crime, which focused on the journalist putting themselves in the story and often shaping it. </p>
<p>While this idea of “new journalism” arose in the 19th century, it has links with our current era. Observing the wide range of subjects for podcasts, the journalism academic <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303398533_Personal_narrative_journalism_and_podcasting">Mia Lindgren</a> has discerned how investigative journalism podcasts (a genre identified with true crime) quickly became very popular. This swift rise is similar to that of penny bloods.</p>
<h2>Moral outrage</h2>
<p>The true crime genre, of course, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336487562_True_crime_podcasting_Journalism_justice_or_entertainment">predates podcasts</a>, but its recent renaissance is, in part, due to award-winning productions like <a href="https://serialpodcast.org/">Serial</a>. In 2019, <a>22 of the top 100</a> podcasts on iTunes were true crime.</p>
<p>Like penny dreadfuls, these podcasts are about real murder and mayhem and naturally blur the line between news and entertainment. </p>
<p>Like penny dreadfuls, true crime podcasts tend to be serialised, short, of variable quality and drop weekly or bi-weekly. They may not have the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls" title=" ">lurid illustrations</a> associated with penny dreadfuls, but the supplementary visual assets on their websites are arguably just as visually arresting — and necessary to the format. Readers of penny dreadfuls wanted to see an illustration of what the murderers and victims looked like; modern podcast listeners also enjoy having their aurally stimulated storytelling supplemented with colourful podcast logos, images and videos of the podcast hosts, and pictorial evidence of crimes.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Illustration of a flying demon terrorising people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373576/original/file-20201208-13-1akq0m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1867 serial Spring-heel’d Jack: The Terror of London was based on urban legends about ghosts and a series of crimes around the city.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-heeled_Jack#/media/File:Jack4.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Penny dreadfuls were developed to cater to <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls" title=" ">a specific youth audience</a>. They generated a moral panic and were held responsible for inspiring real acts of violence as juveniles exposed to such <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160502-the-shocking-tale-of-the-penny-dreadful">“trash”</a> were thought to be morally corrupted. For example, in 1895, Robert and Nattie Coombes, aged 13 and 12, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/30/penny-dreadfuls-victorian-equivalent-video-games-kate-summerscale-wicked-boy">admitted to stabbing their mother to death</a>. The police discovered a collection of penny dreadfuls in the house, which the coroner argued had led the boys to commit the heinous act.</p>
<p>True crime podcasts haven’t been accused of corrupting the young and contributing to juvenile delinquency (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47474996">yet</a>) but the consequences for real people involved in real investigations have been felt. One example comes from Serial. As the podcast’s investigations threw doubt onto whether Adnan Syed was responsible for the murder of his high school girlfriend, a crime for which he had been jailed, avid listeners began searching and stalking Jay, the person Adnan says is <a href="https://theintercept.com/2014/12/29/exclusive-interview-jay-wilds-star-witness-adnan-syed-serial-case-pt-1/">responsible for the murder</a>. </p>
<p>Podcasts seem to be, at worst, tolerated as escapist entertainment, and at best, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336487562_True_crime_podcasting_Journalism_justice_or_entertainment">able to influence the criminal justice system</a> — in a more socially progressive way than crime reporting did in the 19th century. The charity the Innocence Project has seen <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/29/korey-wise-innocence-project-when-they-see-us/">increased donations</a> as a result of podcasts and listeners appear in court to support defendants. Judges even cite podcasts as reasons for changing their decisions on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336487562_True_crime_podcasting_Journalism_justice_or_entertainment">defendants’ motions for post-conviction relief</a>. </p>
<p>The economic historian John Springhall noted that “often-reprinted serials about low-life crime and mystery … would have held a vicarious appeal for young metropolitan readers seeking a romantic escape from uneventful daily lives”. True crime podcasts have also been a welcome escape from the monotony of life in lockdown during the pandemic. Investigative podcasts like The Washington Post’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/podcasts/canary/">Canary</a>, a seven-part series about women who refused to stay silent about sexual assault, and <a href="https://counterclockpodcast.com/">CounterClock</a>, which investigates two unsolved murders, have made it on to lists of the <a href="https://www.engadget.com/apple-best-podcasts-of-2020-213312088.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAA-txVGNOacOz2v4Z8nZseTdXZGDQcFsgCOM3I3RQpsS95LS8gfyta1Q-ow5IdokqrMsi_1CNO-h0fVLxmJp_AGgFFIoNTLzWSpSTDoUoUosgTS6H4uFaIpGcmCS6YElM6ER6HEjXv8msTmzl9OTgVVHDY2rBz9X5-3617y2WsbL">best podcasts for 2020</a>. Both podcasts and penny bloods satisfy a lurid fascination in all that is dark and violent. A fascination that is sure to push the true crime genre to even greater heights in years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Penny dreadfuls told real stories of murder and mayhem to 19th-century audiences seeking escape from city life. True crime podcasts have a lot in common with them.Leslie McMurtry, Lecturer in Radio Studies, University of SalfordAdam Fowler, Lecturer in Creative Audio, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429202020-07-29T02:12:01Z2020-07-29T02:12:01ZMichelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349552/original/file-20200727-21-1jty5gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3653%2C2482&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spotify</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“You kind of fail your way to success,” observed Matt Lieber, head of podcast operations at Spotify, at this year’s <a href="https://www.audiocraft.com.au/the-festival">Audiocraft festival</a>, an annual weekend of panels about podcasting. Normally held in Sydney, this year, thanks to COVID-19, the festival shifted online.</p>
<p>Lieber was talking about StartUp, his podcast about establishing Gimlet Media in 2014. Lieber and his business partner, Alex Blumberg, wanted to develop a podcast studio that would become “<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40515119/gimlet-media-is-one-step-closer-to-becoming-the-hbo-of-audio">the HBO of audio</a>”.</p>
<p>Last year, Gimlet hit the jackpot. It was acquired by Spotify for <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/spotify-gimlet-media-podcast-deal.html">US$230 million</a> (A$322 million). </p>
<p>While podcasts have been alive on the internet since 2004 (“But what to call it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia?” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/feb/12/broadcasting.digitalmedia">asked</a> the Guardian), 2014’s Serial is <a href="https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/whats-behind-the-great-podcast-renaissance.html">largely credited</a> with starting a new boom for the form.</p>
<p>Serial hit <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/serial-season-3-50-milllion-downloads.html">420 million</a> downloads in late 2018; S-Town, from the same production company, had <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2017/05/s-town-podcast-40-million-downloads.html">40 million</a> downloads in its first month.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BANqsJcBAf7","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Last week, the New York Times (whose own The Daily has surpassed <a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/the-daily-hits-one-billion-downloads/">one billion downloads</a>) acquired Serial Productions for <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/23/the-new-york-times-is-buying-the-production-studio-behind-serial-for-25m/">US$25 million</a> (A$35 million). </p>
<p>What was once on the fringes of the internet is now a multi-billion dollar industry. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-s-town-invites-empathy-not-voyeurism-76510">Why S-Town invites empathy not voyeurism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The growing numbers</h2>
<p>For a long time, podcasting was touted as the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/how-podcasting-is-shaping-democracy/524028/">most democratic</a> and accessible mode of journalism and public engagement. </p>
<p>On podcasts, hobbyists could indulge a passion for Greek legends, friends could riff on their favourite books, celebrities could show their human side, and media organisations could share stories too unwieldy for a newspaper or television format.</p>
<p>The early low-budget, niche podcasts were a far cry from shows like Serial or The Joe Rogan Experience. (Hosted by comedian Joe Rogan, the latter show has a reported <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263927/joe-rogan-spotify-experience-exclusive-content-episodes-youtube">190 million downloads</a> a month and was acquired by Spotify in May for around <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-podcast-deal-with-joe-rogan-11589913814">US$100 million</a> (A$140 million).</p>
<p>While some Spotify shows are still available on other podcasting services, productions like The Joe Rogan Experience and the platform’s latest offering, The Michelle Obama Podcast, are available exclusively on Spotify. </p>
<p>Obama’s podcast, which launches today, features conversations on the “relationships that shape us” – not surprisingly, her first guest is her husband.</p>
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<p>Spotify’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/21265005/spotify-joe-rogan-experience-podcast-deal-apple-gimlet-media-ringer">known investment</a> in acquiring podcasts over the past 18 months comes to around US$696 million (A$975 million). This figure doesn’t include the unknown price Spotify has paid in deals with <a href="https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/barack-michelle-obama-spotify-podcast-1203234767/">the Obamas</a> and <a href="https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/kim-kardashian-west-spotify-podcast-1234641221/">Kim Kardashian West</a> to produce original shows, nor the money Spotify is <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/spotify-aims-become-worlds-no-1-audio-platform-1256162">investing in-house</a>.</p>
<p>While Rogan and Obama’s podcasts are (for now) free to listen to, they will tempt people over to the platform and – Spotify hopes – create paying subscribers. Obama’s 2018 memoir, Becoming, has sold <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47704987">over 10 million copies</a>: that is a lot of potential listeners.</p>
<p>Far away from these mega-investment dollars, independent producers are still creating smaller shows for devoted audiences. Many attending Audiocraft were these independent producers, seeking to learn more about the art, craft and business of bringing their podcast ideas to life. </p>
<p>Such aspirations were mocked by a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN0njKIeK5M">ABC skit</a> with celebrities begging people not to turn to podcasting under quarantine. </p>
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<p>The skit polarised viewers: older folk laughed, but younger people bristled, seeing it as an entitled elite trying to police what should be a wide open space without gatekeepers. </p>
<p>This divide is a growing tension among podcast producers.</p>
<h2>Pushing boundaries</h2>
<p>The other big commercial contender in podcasting is the Amazon-owned Audible, which has similarly gone on a “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/amazon-wants-to-build-your-favorite-podcast">multimillion-dollar shopping spree</a>” for podcasts over the past few years.</p>
<p>With Spotify locking listeners into their platform, and Audible’s podcasts only available to paying subscribers we are a far cry from the <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/podcasting-shows-the-value-of-an-open-internet/">open internet ideals</a> the form was built on. </p>
<p>Yet, even in this world of multi-million dollar deals, independent producers are still asserting their right to shape the industry. </p>
<p>Renay Richardson, a black British podcaster whose passionate presentation at Audiocraft wowed the audience, founded <a href="https://www.broccolicontent.com/">Broccoli Content</a> to advance diversity in podcasting. This year, she launched an <a href="https://www.equalityinaudiopact.co.uk/">Audio Pledge</a> demanding equity in pay and representation for minority voices. </p>
<p>It has so far been signed by over 250 organisations, including Spotify and the BBC.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1285925969338019843"}"></div></p>
<h2>An intimate artform</h2>
<p>According to Spotify’s Matt Lieber, podcast listeners want to hear a story, learn something new, and find someone you would want to hang out with. One festival session ticked all three boxes. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.birdseyeviewpodcast.net/">Bird’s Eye View</a> was made in Darwin Correctional Centre over two years. Funded by the Northern Territory government and the Australia Council and independently distributed, Birds Eye View gives a remarkable insight into the lives of incarcerated women.</p>
<p>With raw empathy, the podcast shares moving stories of women talking about abuse, addiction and crime on the outside along with darkly humorous stories of life on the inside. It’s a testament to deep relationships formed over a long and immersive production time. </p>
<p>The payoff is the compelling personal storytelling at which podcasting excels.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ynJKpjjvb","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Some producers fear with the industry so rapidly growing, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/spotify-wants-to-become-the-youtube-of-podcasts-it-would-be-terrible-for-the-industry/2020/05/27/394aec7c-a054-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html">market forces</a> could choke creativity and innovation. </p>
<p>An old adage holds that if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. If the big podcasting platforms figure that one out we will all be the poorer. </p>
<p>Podcasting’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/03/its-boom-time-for-podcasts-but-will-going-mainstream-kill-the-magic">special ingredients</a> have long been the authenticity of its wide range of voices and the intimate relationship they engender with the audience, speaking directly into our ears. If those defining characteristics get subverted in a push for profit, much of podcasting’s magic will be lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh will receive consultancy funding from Lockdown Productions, which will be making a podcast with Audible Australia. She has also received funding for podcast production from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Podcasts were once a niche hobby of the internet. Now (thanks to Spotify), Michelle Obama is joining the fray.Siobhan McHugh, Associate Professor, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1303892020-04-28T19:56:10Z2020-04-28T19:56:10ZAn honest reckoning with Captain Cook’s legacy won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a start<p><em>Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/cook250-78244">here</a> and an interactive <a href="https://cook250.netlify.app/">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an edited transcript of an interview with John Maynard for our podcast <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/trust-me-im-an-expert-43810">Trust Me, I’m An Expert</a>. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>There are a multitude of Aboriginal oral memories about Captain James Cook, right across the continent.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/events/cooks-treasures/papers/Deborah-Rose-Captain-Cook.pdf">research</a> from Deborah Bird Rose shows, many Aboriginal people in remote locations are certainly under the impression that Cook came there as well, shooting people in a kind of Cook-led invasion of Australia. Many of these communities, of course, never met James Cook; the man never even went there. </p>
<p>But the deep impact of James Cook that spread across the country and he came to represent the bogeyman for Aboriginal Australia. </p>
<p>Even back in the Protection and Welfare Board days, a government car would turn up and Aboriginal people would be running around <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/stories/audio/professor-john-maynard">screaming</a>, “Lookie, lookie, here comes Cookie!” </p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/digital-classroom/senior/Cook/Indigenous-Response/Maynard">wrote</a> about Uncle Ray Rose, sadly recently departed, who’d had a stroke. Someone said, “How do you feel?” And he said, “No good. I’m Captain Cooked.” </p>
<p>Cook, wherever he went up the coast, was giving names where names already existed. <a href="https://www.redbilby.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/East_Coast_Encounter_Sample.pdf">Yuin oral memory</a> in the south coast of NSW gives the example of what they called <a href="https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/south-coast/batemans-bay-and-eurobodalla/tilba/attractions/mount-gulaga-mount-dromedary-walk">Gulaga</a> and Cook called “Mount Dromedary”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] that name can be seen as the first of the changes that come for our people […] Cook’s maps were very good, but they did not show our names for places. He didn’t ask us. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cook has been <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/digital-classroom/senior/Cook/Indigenous-Response/Maynard">incorporated</a> into songs, jokes, stories and Aboriginal oral histories right across the country. </p>
<p>Why? I think it’s an Aboriginal response to the way we’ve been taught about our history. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/captain-cook-wanted-to-introduce-british-justice-to-indigenous-people-instead-he-became-increasingly-cruel-and-violent-127025">Captain Cook wanted to introduce British justice to Indigenous people. Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Myth-making persists but a shift is underway</h2>
<p>I came through a school system of the 50s and 60s, and we weren’t weren’t even mentioned in the history books except as a people belonging to the Stone Age or as a dying race. </p>
<p>It was all about discoverers, explorers, settlers and Phar Lap or Don Bradman. But us Aboriginal people? Not there. </p>
<p>We had this high exposure of the public celebration of Cook, the statues of Cook, the reenactments of Cook – it was really in your face. For Aboriginal people, how do we make sense of all of this, faced with the reality of our experience and the catastrophic impact?</p>
<p>We’ve got to make sense of it the best way we can, and I think that’s why Cook turns up in so many oral histories. </p>
<p>I think wider Australia is moving towards a more balanced understanding of our history. Lots of people now recognise the richest cultural treasure the country possesses is 65,000 years of Aboriginal cultural connection to this continent. </p>
<p>That’s unlike anywhere else in the world. I mean no disrespect, but 250 years is a drop in a lake compared to 65,000 years. From our perspective, in fact, we’ve always been here. Our people came out of the Dreamtime of the creative ancestors and lived and kept the Earth as it was in the very first day. </p>
<p>With global warming, rising sea levels, rising temperatures and catastrophic storms, Aboriginal people did keep the Earth as it was in the very first day to ensure that it was passed to each surviving generation. </p>
<p>There was going to be a (now-<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/captain-cook-250th-anniversary-voyage-suspended-due-to-coronavirus">cancelled</a>) <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-22/endeavour-replica-to-sail-around-australia/10734998">circumnavigation</a> of Australia in the official proceedings this year, which the prime minister supported. But James Cook didn’t circumnavigate Australia. He only sailed up the east coast. So that’s creating more myths again, which is a senseless way to go.</p>
<h2>‘With the consent of the Natives to take possession’</h2>
<p>Personally, I have high regard for James Cook as a navigator, as a cartographer, and certainly as an inspiring captain of his crew. He encouraged incredible loyalty among those that sailed with him on those three voyages. And that has to be recognised. </p>
<p>But against that, of course, is the reality that he was given <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/content/secret">secret instructions</a> by the Navy to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With the consent of the Natives to take possession of the convenient situations in the country in the name of the king of Great Britain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, consent was never given. When they went ashore at Botany Bay, two Aboriginal men <a href="https://www.bl.uk/the-voyages-of-captain-james-cook/articles/an-indigenous-australian-perspective-on-cooks-arrival">brandished spears</a> and made it quite clear they didn’t want him there. Those men were wounded and Cook was one of those firing a musket.</p>
<p>There was no gaining any consent when he sailed on to Possession Island and planted that flag down. Totally the opposite, in fact.</p>
<p>And the most insightful viewpoint is from Cook himself, who <a href="http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/17700430.html">wrote</a> that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>all they seem’d to want was for us to be gone.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Cook’s background gave him insight</h2>
<p>James Cook wasn’t your normal British naval officer of that time period. To get into such a position, you normally had to be born into the right family, to come from money and privilege. </p>
<p>James Cook was none of those things. He came from a poor family. His father was a labourer. Cook got to where he was by skill, endeavour, and, unquestionably, because he was a very smart man and brilliant at sea. But it’s also from that background that he’s able to offer insight. </p>
<p>There’s an incredible quotation of Cook’s where he <a href="http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook_remarks/092.html">says</a> of Aboriginal people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition… they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholsome Air.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, Cook is comparing what he is seeing in Australia with life back Britain, where there is an incredible amount of inequality. London, at the time, was filthy. Sewerage pouring through the streets. Disease was rife. Underprivilege is everywhere. </p>
<p>In Australia, though, Cook sees what to him looks like this incredible egalitarian society and it makes an impact on him because of where he comes from. </p>
<p>But deeper misunderstandings persisted. In what’s now called Cooktown there are, at first, amicable relationships with the Guugu Yimithirr people, but when they <a href="http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/banks/banksvo2.pdf">come aboard the Endeavour</a> they see this incredible profusion of turtles that the crew has captured. </p>
<p>They’re probably thinking, “these are our turtles.” They would quite happily share some of those turtles but the Bristish response is: you get <em>none</em>. </p>
<p>So the Guugu Yimithirr people go off the ship and set the grass on fire. Eventually, there’s a kind of peace settlement but the incident reveals a complete blindness on the part of the British to the idea of reciprocity in Aboriginal society.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/they-are-all-dead-for-indigenous-people-cooks-voyage-of-discovery-was-a-ghostly-visitation-126430">'They are all dead': for Indigenous people, Cook's voyage of 'discovery' was a ghostly visitation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A collision of catastrophic proportions</h2>
<p>The impact of 1770 has never eased for Aboriginal people. It was a collision of catastrophic proportions. The whole impact of 1788 – of invasion, dispossession, cultural destruction, occupation onto assimilation, segregation – all of these things that came after 1770.</p>
<p>Anything you want to measure – Aboriginal health, education, employment, housing, youth suicide, incarceration – we have the worst stats. That has been a continuation, a reality of the failure of government to recognise what has happened in the past and actually do something about it in the present to fix it for the future. </p>
<p>We’ve had decades and decades of governments saying to us, “We know what’s best for you.” But the fact is that when it comes to Aboriginal well being, the only people to listen to are Aboriginal people and we’ve never been put in the position.</p>
<p>We’ve been raising our voices for a long time now, but some people see that as a threat and are not prepared to listen.</p>
<p>An honest reckoning of the reality of Cook and what came after won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a starting point, from which we can join hands and walk together toward a shared future. </p>
<p>A balanced understanding of the past will help us build a future – it is of critical importance.</p>
<h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-podcasts-130882">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/trust-me-im-an-expert/id1290047736?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D8"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3RydXN0LW1lLXBvZGNhc3QucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation/trust-me-im-an-expert"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Trust-Me-Im-An-Expert-p1035757/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/trust-me-im-an-expert-Wa3E5A"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7myc7drbLJVaRitAMXLB7V"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
<p><strong>Additional audio credits</strong></p>
<p><em>Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from <a href="https://www.elefanttraks.com/">Elefant Traks.</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daniel_Birch/Music_For_Audio_Drama_Podcasts_Vol1/Marimba_On_The_Loose">Marimba On the Loose</a> by Daniel Birch, from Free Music Archive.</em></p>
<p><em>Podcast episode recorded and edited by Sunanda Creagh.</em></p>
<h2>Lead image</h2>
<p><em>Uncle Fred Deeral as little old man in the film The Message, a film by Zakpage, to be shown at the National Museum of Australia in April. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The impact of 1770 has never eased for Aboriginal people. It was a collision of catastrophic proportions.Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1308822020-01-30T05:27:36Z2020-01-30T05:27:36ZHow to listen to podcasts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312778/original/file-20200130-41503-1k4j560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5593%2C2804&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Your phone probably already has a podcast app installed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="https://pca.st/VTv7">here</a> to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/trust-me-im-an-expert/id1290047736?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D8"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3RydXN0LW1lLXBvZGNhc3QucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation/trust-me-im-an-expert"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Trust-Me-Im-An-Expert-p1035757/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/trust-me-im-an-expert-Wa3E5A"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7myc7drbLJVaRitAMXLB7V"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app.Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1204282019-07-19T03:10:03Z2019-07-19T03:10:03ZWhat’s the next ‘giant leap’ for humankind in space? We asked 3 space experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284661/original/file-20190718-147318-7f7zg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1914%2C1279&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Today, we're asking two astrophysicists and a planetary scientist: what's the likelihood we'll be living on Mars or the Moon in future?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/photos/rocket-launch-rocket-take-off-nasa-67643/">Pixabay/WikiImages</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ve probably heard that this week marks 50 years since humans first set foot on the Moon – a feat that still boggles the mind given the limitations of technology at the time and the global effort required to pull it off. </p>
<p>If you’re as fascinated as we are about the history and future of space exploration, check out The Conversation podcast, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/moon-and-beyond">To the moon and beyond</a>, a five-part podcast series from The Conversation. We’ve featured a little taste of it on Trust Me today.</p>
<p>Through interviews with academic experts around the world – from space scientists to historians, lawyers, futurists and a former astronaut – science journalist Miriam Frankel and space scientist Martin Archer look at the past 50 years of space exploration and what the 50 years ahead have in store.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/to-the-moon-and-beyond-2-how-humanity-reacted-to-the-moon-landing-and-why-it-led-to-conspiracy-theories-120046">Episode two</a> features Australia’s own space archaeologist, Alice Gorman, in conversation with Sarah Keenihan about why Apollo 11 landing spots could become heritage sites for future generations of visitors to the Moon. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-the-moon-and-beyond-2-how-humanity-reacted-to-the-moon-landing-and-why-it-led-to-conspiracy-theories-120046">To the moon and beyond 2: how humanity reacted to the moon landing and why it led to conspiracy theories</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But today, The Conversation’s Molly Glassey sits down with a panel of astrophysicists to ask the big questions about space, like: what’s the next big thing that’s happening in space research, the thing that will blow us away or bring us together the way the Moon landing did back in 1969? And what’s the likelihood we’ll be living on Mars or the Moon in future?</p>
<p>Today, Molly chats to astrophysicists <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonti-horner-3355">Jonti Horner</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/belinda-nicholson-142751">Belinda Nicholson</a> from the University of Southern Queensland and planetary scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katarina-miljkovic-440822">Katarina Miljkovic</a> from Curtin University.</p>
<p>You can find all the episodes of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/moon-and-beyond">To the moon and beyond</a> on your podcast app, or on our site <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/podcasts/moon-and-beyond">here</a>. </p>
<h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="https://pca.st/VTv7">here</a> to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/trust-me-im-an-expert/id1290047736?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D8"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3RydXN0LW1lLXBvZGNhc3QucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation/trust-me-im-an-expert"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Trust-Me-Im-An-Expert-p1035757/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/trust-me-im-an-expert-Wa3E5A"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7myc7drbLJVaRitAMXLB7V"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Credits:</strong></p>
<p><em>To the moon and beyond is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Sound editing by Siva Thangarajah. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for allowing use of their studios for To the moon and beyond, and to .</em></p>
<p><em>Music: <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Philipp_Weigl/Sound-trax/Philipp_Weigl_-_02_-_Even_when_we_fall#">Even when we fall by Philipp Weigl</a>, via Free Music Archive</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/Loss_to_Gain/Fallen_Stars">Fallen Stars by Ketsa</a>, via Free Music Archive</em></p>
<p><em>Apollo <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_audio.html">11</a> and <a href="https://archive.org/details/Apollo17">17</a> audio from NASA</em></p>
<p><strong>Additional audio</strong></p>
<p><em>Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from <a href="https://www.elefanttraks.com/">Elefant Traks.</a></em></p>
<h2>Images</h2>
<p><em>Pixabay/<a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/rocket-launch-rocket-take-off-nasa-67643/">WikiImages</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
What's the next thing that will blow us away or bring us together the way the Moon landing did in 1969? Moon mining? Alien contact? Retirement on Mars? Three space experts share their predictions.Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorMolly Glassey, Digital Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1203492019-07-16T03:25:52Z2019-07-16T03:25:52ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Megan Davis on a First Nations Voice in the Constitution<p>Last week on this podcast <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-ken-wyatt-on-constitutional-recognition-for-indigenous-australians-120167">we talked to Ken Wyatt</a> about the government’s plan for a referendum – hopefully this parliamentary term – to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. </p>
<p>This week, we continue the conversation on Indigenous recognition with Megan Davis, a law professor and expert member of a key United Nations Indigenous rights body on the debate about an <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/discussion-topics/indigenous-voice.html">Indigenous ‘Voice’</a> which has followed Ken Wyatt’s announcement. </p>
<p>“At this point the only viable option for constitutional reform is this proposal for a Voice to parliament,” says Megan Davis.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Uluru Statement from the Heart is significant because it’s the first time an Australian government has gone out to community and said to them what does recognition mean to you in the Australian Constitution? And their answer was we want a better say in the laws and policies that affect our lives. </p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>The very key point here is the symbolic elements of recognition were completely unanimously rejected. So there was a very strong view that this needed to be practical reconciliation – that Aboriginal people were over symbolism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Megan Davis is currently in Geneva for a meeting of the UN body she sits on, where she says this issue will be raised among other issues which Australian Indigenous people face. </p>
<p>Australia’s reputation on the international stage has had a number of issues such as “incarceration[…]the conditions of young people in youth detention[…][and] the numbers of child removals”. </p>
<h2>New to podcasts?</h2>
<p>Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click <a href="http://pca.st/BVa3#t=3m34s">here</a> to listen to Politics with Michelle Grattan on Pocket Casts).</p>
<p>You can also hear it on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Politics with Michelle Grattan.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/politics-with-michelle-grattan/id703425900?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3BvbGl0aWNzLXdpdGgtbWljaGVsbGUtZ3JhdHRhbi5yc3M"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation-4/politics-with-michelle-grattan"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Politics-with-Michelle-Grattan-p227852/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-WRElBZ"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5NkaSQoUERalaLBQAqUOcC"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score/Lee_Rosevere_-_The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score_-_10_A_List_of_Ways_to_Die">A List of Ways to Die</a>, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.</p>
<p><strong>Image:</strong></p>
<p>RICHARD WAINWRIGHT/AAP</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120349/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Megan Davis says the idea of including an Indigenous Voice in the Constitution is being rejected on an understanding that "simply isn't true" but believes Australia has the "capacity to correct this".Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1141762019-04-25T20:11:41Z2019-04-25T20:11:41ZPodcasts and cities: ‘you’re always commenting on power’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270574/original/file-20190424-19272-o1s9wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Podcasters can introduce new voices to the conversations about the cities we live in.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/santo-domingo-october-9-media-correspondents-38897749?src=16vPUzn26qoyDzW84CtWLg-1-32">Salim October/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More and more podcasts about <a href="https://architecturequote.com/blog/the-best-71-podcasts-for-architects/">cities</a> are being produced by <a href="https://www.thecitypodcast.com/podcast_episode/six-stories/">journalists</a> and academics. They’re being <a href="https://architecturequote.com/blog/the-best-71-podcasts-for-architects/">recorded</a> in <a href="https://cityroadpod.org/">research labs</a>, <a href="https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-urbanist/">urban planning offices</a>, <a href="http://www.slate.com/podcasts/placemakers.html?via=gdpr-consent#all-episodes">on the streets</a> and <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/plan-rezoning-brooklyn-neighborhood-gentrification">in the neighbourhoods</a> of our <a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/7-podcasts-urbanists-should-be-listening-to-now">cities</a>.</p>
<p>Podcasting allows academics to share research across <a href="http://ijhp.online/pod">vast geographical distances</a>. And, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2019.1595487">we argue</a>, podcasters are creating new conversations about who and what the city is for.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-cameron-mcauliffe-on-nimbys-urban-planning-and-making-community-consultation-work-93744">Speaking with: Cameron McAuliffe on NIMBYs, urban planning and making community consultation work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why are urban podcasts important?</h2>
<p>Consider the 99 Percent Invisible episode, <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/structural-integrity/">Structural Integrity</a>. It starts with a seemingly technical discussion about the engineering challenges of the 279-metre Citicorp building in New York. It has a uniquely engineered <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center#/media/File:Citigroup_center_from_ground.jpg">stilt-style base</a> and was the seventh-tallest building in the world when constructed in 1977. </p>
<p>The podcast opens with the chief structural engineer, William LeMessurier, <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/structural-integrity/">recalling</a>: “1978, I’m in my office, I get a call from a student. I do not know the school, I wish <em>he</em> would call me … I think <em>he</em> was an architectural student.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270580/original/file-20190424-19297-120bp2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The student who calculated that the 279-metre Citicorp building was at risk of being blown over turned out to be a woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-city-october-11-2017-735755890?src=vF_s14E7WoZMUsmkOPTkMA-1-15">Felix Lipov/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to this student’s research, the Citicorp building could blow over in the wind. LeMessurier re-ran his engineering calculations to find the student was right. There was about a 1-in-16 chance the building would collapse in the middle of New York. </p>
<p>“What I wanted to know,” <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/structural-integrity/">says</a> LeMessurier, “when is this building going to fall down?” </p>
<p>But this technical discussion is simply a storytelling device to get us to the question of gender. A little later, we hear the podcast host <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/structural-integrity/">say</a>: “OK, wait for it, wait for this moment, it’s a good one, here it comes.” Then we hear a female voice. </p>
<p>In a masterclass in radio storytelling, we find out the architectural student is Diane Hartley. “It turns out that <em>she</em> was the student in LeMessurier’s story.”</p>
<h2>Learning from community radio</h2>
<p>As a listener, you’re encouraged to reflect on LeMessurier’s assumption that the smart engineering student was a man, and to call LeMessurier out when it becomes evident the student is a woman.</p>
<p>We’re part of a group of academic community radio makers who want to tell these types of stories, and we’re drawing on the interviewing and storytelling skills of journalists.</p>
<p><a href="https://2ser.com/">2ser</a> community radio in Sydney produces podcasts like <a href="https://cityroadpod.org/">City Road</a> (our show) and <a href="https://historylab.net/">HistoryLab</a>. These shows combine the rigour of research with academic voices and journalistic storytelling.</p>
<p>In an environment where research papers are buried behind publisher paywalls, podcasting allows academics to communicate their research beyond the university. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Hear more:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/podcasts/trust-me-podcast">Trust Me, I’m An Expert</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Community radio and university partnerships are blurring the line between academia and journalism to offer new ways of hearing about the latest research. </p>
<h2>Podcasting is about power and representation</h2>
<p>Podcasting is not just about audio recording equipment, production and distribution. When you tell a story with a podcast, as Chenjerai Kumanyika <a href="https://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/feature/all-stories-are-stories-about-power">reminds us</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Power is always present; you’re always commenting on power. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For <a href="https://transom.org/2015/chenjerai-kumanyika/">Kumanyika</a>, podcasting is about shared commitments to social justice, media diversity, democracy and promoting rigorous public debate on issues of social importance. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/ferguson-is-not-a-special-case-34655">post-Ferguson America</a>, for example, African American <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815606779">podcasters</a> recreated “iconic spaces of Black sociality like the barber/beauty shop or the church” by “cocooning” themselves in conversations in their own vernaculars while walking through and experiencing the city.</p>
<p>In South Korea, <a href="https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-review/article/view/49">podcasters</a> engaged in democratic conversations to challenge state control. Black and/or radical voices are often absent in mainstream media in the US and Korea. </p>
<p>In Sydney, the two young Aboriginal radio makers of <a href="https://soundcloud.com/radio-skid-row/sets/survival-guide">The Survival Guide</a> provide a (post-)colonial reading of the urban planning process guiding the gentrification of their community in <a href="https://www.ugdc.nsw.gov.au/growth-centres/redfern-to-waterloo/">Redfern</a>. The tagline for their <a href="http://www.radioskidrow.org/">Radio Skid Row</a> show is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a black history to your flat white.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-chris-ho-and-edgar-liu-about-diversity-and-high-density-in-our-cities-106352">Speaking with: Chris Ho and Edgar Liu about diversity and high density in our cities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>We need new voices and stories</h2>
<p>One reason podcasts like these matter is that the democratising power of the media is under threat globally. From liberal democracies to authoritarian states, mainstream media get their content from a shrinking number of large commercial media groups. </p>
<p><a href="https://rsf.org/en/australia">Australia</a> sits 19th on the World Press Freedom Index, alongside the UK at 40 and the US at 45, as the <a href="https://www.meaa.org/download/press-freedom-in-australia-getting-worse-survey/#">threats</a> to investigative and public interest journalism mount. Around the world, media organisations are scrambling to adjust as new digital platforms increasingly control the dissemination of news content. </p>
<p>As academic podcasting evolves, it could become an important research dissemination tool within a media environment defined by narrowing content and concentrating ownership.</p>
<p>Podcasts can allow for public discussions that bypass large, commercially driven media monopolies. But the <a href="https://www.strategy-business.com/article/The-Podcasting-Revenue-Boom-Has-Started?gko=d3034">danger</a> is commercial podcasting distributors are stepping in to commercialise and control podcast distribution too.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/media-files-what-does-the-future-newsroom-look-like-106158">Media Files: What does the future newsroom look like?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Listen up!</h2>
<p>Podcasting can expand the way we participate in cities. It allows those who are not regularly heard to have new (and old) conversations with listeners. </p>
<p>So next time you listen to a podcast, ask yourself: who is talking and who are they in conversation with? And what commercial and other interests are regulating and limiting these conversations?</p>
<p>The voices that have historically been excluded from traditional media are now <a href="https://transom.org/2015/chenjerai-kumanyika/">speaking</a>. Are you listening?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dallas Rogers is a Board Member of community radio station Radio Skid Row and his City Road Podcast broadcasts on 2ser Community Radio. Dallas was involved in the initial scoping of the first season of the Survival Guide and received funding from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) for this project. However, Dallas was not involved in the production of the Survival Guide.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miles Herbert works for the community radio station 2ser 107.3.</span></em></p>Podcasters are creating new conversations about who and what the city is for. But even in the podcasting world, powerful interests can make it hard for new and previously excluded voices to be heard.Dallas Rogers, Program Director, Master of Urbanism, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of SydneyMiles Herbert, PhD Candidate, Department of Journalism, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/998042018-11-26T12:48:06Z2018-11-26T12:48:06ZRadio gaga? Four issues that will decide the future of audio<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229966/original/file-20180731-136670-s8vlbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">dencg via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As early as 1934, experts were predicting the demise of radio due to its ephemeral nature – unlike print, cinematic film, or scored music, once broadcast into the ether, it was gone forever. But the key to radio has always been its ability to adapt to changing social and technological situations. More than eight decades later, radio is <a href="https://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php">still reaching 89% of the adult population</a> of the UK (that’s <a href="https://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/news/RAJAR_DataRelease_InfographicQ22018_v2.pdf">44.8m people</a>). </p>
<p>The complex relationship between traditional radio and newer forms such as podcast is manifest in the way people consume media in the digital world. The seemingly endless appetite for podcasts has renewed predictions of the end of broadcast radio many times over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting">since it began to take hold</a> around 15 years ago. Podcasting has not killed the radio star, but the relationship remains fraught and not always well understood.</p>
<p>The following issues have emerged again and again throughout high-profile events, including the <a href="http://salfordmediafestival.co.uk/events/nations-regions-media-conference/">Nations and Regions in Media (NARM) Conference</a>, the <a href="https://next.radio/">Next Radio Conference</a>, and indeed the Radio Academy’s <a href="https://www.radioacademy.org/arias">ARIA (Audio and Radio Industry) Awards</a>, as the defining areas of 21st-century radio and podcasting.</p>
<h2>Youth radio</h2>
<p>One of the biggest issues that will affect the future of radio in the UK is its relationship with young people. Media and cultural historian, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/life-on-air-9780199550241?cc=gb&lang=en&">David Hendy</a>, noted that the average age of Radio 4 listeners is 55, compared with 53 in 1982. But it is radio’s relationship with teenage listeners that will decide its longevity.</p>
<p>Providing more content for younger listeners is clearly something the BBC is taking into account. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xcph0">Radio 1Xtra Presents: Quarter Life Crisis</a>, a short drama written and performed by rising 20-something BAME star <a href="https://www.yolandamercy.com/">Yolanda Mercy</a>, which was broadcast in April 2018, spoke frankly and refreshingly to young people – framed within a judicious mix of music and comedy.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1064943489987825671"}"></div></p>
<p>Available data on podcast-makers suggests, until recently, they have tended to be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19376529.2014.891211">tech-savvy, male</a> and generally <a href="http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=978-1-61289-070-8">aged 18-24</a>. The radio industry in the UK is therefore keen to engage young people, evidenced by the <a href="https://www.radioacademy.org/30-under-30">30 Under 30</a> initiative from the Radio Academy. One reason, perhaps, that young people don’t engage more with traditional broadcast radio is because they don’t hear anyone on radio who sounds like they do – this must change.</p>
<h2>Class and region on radio</h2>
<p>At the 2018 NARM conference, Mancunian student Molly Keyworth – who went on to win an award for <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/utterradio/playlists/baftars-2018/">Best Radio Documentary</a> – wondered why no one on radio sounded like her. In media depictions, “rural” accents such as West Country are often still designated as a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/its-not-what-you-say-its-the-way-that-you-say-it-1235894.html">shorthand for stupidity</a>. As linguistics expert <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-archers-an-everyday-story-of-accents-character-and-status-91866">Rob Drummond</a> argued on this site, there is no linguistic reason for an accent to be associated with particular characteristics – socially we assign these shared meanings within a culture. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, over time, a certain kind of broadcasting voice has come to be associated with professional radio broadcasting within the UK. The broadcast voice of the BBC in the 1920s and 1930s was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbsS3MNofR4">a southern English dialect</a>, similar to <a href="https://soundstudiesblog.com/2018/03/12/speaking-american/">Received Pronunciation</a>. Regional voices were deemed unacceptable in British radio news reading until World War II and “unmistakably Yorkshire” <a href="http://my-yorkshire.co.uk/people/wilfred-pickles.html">Wilfred Pickles</a>. Clearly, there is more diversity heard on professional radio broadcasting today – but <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1575790/BBC-chief-calls-for-more-regional-accents.html">the standard accent</a>, shorn of regional identity, is still surprisingly ubiquitous across UK broadcasting.</p>
<h2>Long tail of podcasting</h2>
<p>The notion of a “long tail” in digital media was first popularised by the editor of Wired magazine, <a href="http://www.longtail.com/about.html">Chris Anderson</a>, in his 2006 book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. The long tail refers to niche interests which may have fewer consumers, as opposed to the big, popular, blockbuster hits, but are nevertheless being especially catered for in the digital era.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229998/original/file-20180731-136676-4gn0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radio: now a second screen which is easily accessible via smartphones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ra2studio via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This idea adapts well for podcasting – essentially it means that, in podcast scholar Richard Berry’s words, it enables a diverse array of listeners “to find something that more closely represents their interests”. Nevertheless, podcasting is not a panacea for the perceived ills of traditional radio broadcast. It requires more efficient ways of directing listeners to content and does not cater particularly well for older listeners, due to its proliferation on technologically new platforms, such as online and on Smartphone apps (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPV2oSz8m4">though efforts have been made</a> to reverse this trend. </p>
<p>The statistics support this – while the number of weekly podcast listeners in the UK <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/uk-podcast-listening-booms">has almost doubled in five years</a> – from 3.2m in 2013 to 5.9m in 2018 – this still only represents 11% of adults in the UK. As BBC Radio 5 Live’s Chris Warburton argued at the NARM conference, the future of podcasting will be predicated on making it an easier experience for the consumer without losing the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonlevy/2018/02/28/everything-you-need-to-know-to-start-your-own-podcast-according-to-the-pros/#6faad6d5792e">anyone-can-do-it</a> nature of podcasting itself. </p>
<h2>Content for children</h2>
<p>While half of podcast listeners in the UK are under 35, there is an audience in both broadcast radio and podcasting that remains underserved.</p>
<p>That audience is children. There has been specific, targeted radio content for children from the very beginning of radio. The first original radio drama broadcast in the UK was in 1923, and it was for children: <a href="https://www.academia.edu/20834482/Aunties_and_uncles_the_BBCs_childrens_hour_and_liminal_concerns_in_the_1920s">The Truth About Father Christmas</a>. It was broadcast from Newcastle by a “radio auntie,” Phyllis M. Twigg. Children’s Hour was a stalwart on BBC Radio between 1923 and 1967. Now dedicated children’s programming has all but disappeared from UK airwaves. </p>
<p>As Gregory Watson of FunKids Radio pointed out at the NARM conference, children’s radio is underserved, not just in the UK but <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/where-are-all-the-kidcasts/476157/">around the world</a>. Currently, such programming is provided almost entirely by CBeebies Radio and FunKids Radio. While there are a range of programmes available on both platforms, the emphasis is on music, for example on FunKids which is 70-75% pop music. As Johnny Leagas of CBeebies Radio pointed out, children’s TV is a babysitter, while radio is a family experience with a wide potential of engagement. This is an area from which radio broadcasters can learn a thing or two <a href="https://www.fatherly.com/play/the-best-podcasts-for-kids/">from podcasters</a>. </p>
<p>So while media pundits and the broadcast radio industry itself seem to draw a clear line between <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303398632_Podcasting_Considering_the_evolution_of_the_medium_and_its_association_with_the_word_%27radio%27">radio and podcasting</a>, the truth is that they are interrelated forms – and, thankfully, neither is going to go away any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leslie McMurtry is part of the BA in Television and Radio at the University of Salford, which is led by Beth Hewitt, who was the organiser of the Nations and Regions in Media conference. This article was not written with input from anyone who organises or presented at NARM. </span></em></p>Reports of the death of radio are, as ever, exaggerated – but it could re-engage with younger listeners.Leslie McMurtry, Lecturer in Radio Studies, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1063902018-11-13T11:04:27Z2018-11-13T11:04:27ZHome Front: 100 years on, BBC’s groundbreaking four-year experiment brought real people to life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245295/original/file-20181113-194497-tm7cgb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From August 2014, the BBC's four-year project followed the lives of ordinary people facing the stress of war on the home front.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the debut of the BBC Radio Four World War I drama <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b03thbcj">Home Front</a> aired in August 2014, it was <a href="https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/birmingham-made-bbc-radio-drama-tells-7599958">described as</a> “the most ambitious radio drama project embarked on by the BBC for half a century”. Over four years and 600 episodes, Home Front brought to life the stories of individual lives during World War I, with each episode set exactly 100 years from the day of broadcast.</p>
<p>Home Front, which finished on the day before Remembrance Sunday, is a fictitious drama – but told against the <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/were-using-the-same-aga-and-belfast-sink-as-jill-archer-how-radio-4-made-home-front/">factual background of World War I</a>, drawing on a kaleidoscope of different perspectives, compelling storylines are melded around the events at the time. </p>
<p>This is a story, not about the war, but about how the country was changed by it. Based variously in the southern English seaside town of Folkestone, the north-eastern shipbuilding centre of Tynesmouth and Devon in England’s west country – it brings to life crucial changes in national consciousness. This includes how limitations on male-only jobs were swept aside by the desperate <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/entries/9656419c-7269-495d-927e-51423950e31e">need for women</a> to fill <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/27WcbTgjzwnGSR9CJ54dPdK/6-surprising-stories-from-the-home-front-in-world-war-one">posts left vacant</a>; the appetite for new forms of spiritualism to make contact with lost sons and husbands; and the sharp disenchantment with established values, as eager young recruits are returned damaged or dead.</p>
<p>There may no longer be any “Tommies” left alive – but there are still plenty of people who remember a parent or great grandparent who had been shaped by the war. For a younger generation, Home Front draws on shared memories to reclaim a sense of the personal and communal from the desolating image of the trenches.</p>
<p>This is also a <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/rj/2014/00000012/F0020001/art00010">pivotal time</a> in how we mark shared events. As radio competes with <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2017/02/age-podcasts-era-communal-listening-over">on-demand digital platforms</a>, Home Front feels like the chance to make an impact when there is still a shared listening audience <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2018/podcasts-and-new-audio-strategies/">in the UK at least</a>.</p>
<h2>A fine line to tread</h2>
<p>The challenge is to turn fine intentions into good drama. Telling complex stories involving 65 characters into 12-minute episodes is a tall order. As consultant to the series, historian <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/first-world-war/sanitising-the-past-should-historical-drama-reflect-modern-sensibilities/">Maggie Andrews</a>, notes: child-beating, chauvinism and anti-German vitriol were all present at the time, but portrayed too frequently and the audience may lose sympathy in the characters. Used well, however, and it can be a powerful source of drama. In one poignant scene, a vicar’s wife writes to her husband about the death of their infant child, the husband having left for France being unable to recognise their mixed-race child, as his own.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245062/original/file-20181112-83567-eo819d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Home Front set out to portray the ordinary lives of people facing the hardships of World War I.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In order to address the vastness of the shared experience, while also keeping a sense of the personal, the production uses the clever trick of telling each episode from a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/entries/dc24c0c6-74ec-3071-8265-4a8184713d9a">different viewpoint</a>. In individual episodes stories may seem domestic – but listen across seasons and you experience <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p054rr2x">air-raids</a> in Folkestone, industrial disputes in Tyneside, espionage in Belgium and coastal hospitals overwhelmed by the injured. Despite this, individuals are never lost in the epic sweep of the series.</p>
<h2>‘Event listening’</h2>
<p>The series has not been without its critics. Some bemoan a <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-may-be-world-war-i-overkill-but-home-front-is-essential-listening-34883">morbid fascination</a> with the war, others observe a Radio Four tone of dialogue-heavy content, as opposed to the trend for confessional-style podcasts or strongly soundscaped action-dramas such as Stardust (Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs) or Home Front’s companion series Tommies. </p>
<p>But with an audience of up to three million per week it is among the the most listened-to radio dramas in the UK, behind The Archers. To put that in context, top US fiction podcasts have reached <a href="https://www.werealive.com/blog/">100m downloads</a> – but as a radio production and podcast, Home Front has achieved more than 300m listens.</p>
<p>There is also a passionate following on social media and a surprisingly international audience. In researching the series, I talked to audio drama producer Austin Beach from Kentucky, who admired the authenticity of the characters and settings, as well as a French listener who ran a petition to extend the series. There was also a German listener who praised the characterisation of Germans as being “as real as their British counterparts”, and observing “you might even like them.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1060876906910924800"}"></div></p>
<p>These successes notwithstanding, it’s an open question whether something like Home Front might be repeated in the future. When commissioned in 2013 Radio 4 was unequivocally the dominant story-telling medium in the UK, now it <a href="https://theconversation.com/netflix-of-the-spoken-word-big-changes-in-the-world-of-audio-for-2017-70553">competes for market share</a> with podcasters, publishers and the Amazon audiobook subsidiary, Audible. Will public service broadcasting continue to have the shared, unifying power of radio, in a world of on-demand multi-channel listening?</p>
<h2>Public service broadcasting in a new era</h2>
<p>Home Front is a remarkable series, full of subtle humour and some breathtakingly poignant moments. But more than this, it transports listeners to a world that lies on the cusp of memory and history. In this sense it is a triumph of the Reithian values: to inform, to educate and to entertain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245063/original/file-20181112-83593-1qqa1s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Event radio: Home Front is among the the most listened-to radio dramas in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As BBC radio embarks on a new era, with the <a href="http://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/it-is-a-really-significant-landmark-bbc-sounds-launches-with-artist-curated-content/074284">launch of the digital platform BBC Sounds</a> designed to appeal to younger audiences, I hope that it continues to champion the public interest by backing big initiatives like Home Front. But I also believe it has a role in coordinating and nurturing talent. </p>
<p>In a recent project I was involved in, the <a href="http://www.11thhouraudio.com/">11th Hour Audio project</a>, podcasters from all over the world collaborated to create new horror-themed productions for <a href="https://www.audiodramaday.com/">World Audio Drama Day</a>. The BBC does not always need to commission content; competitions, sharing studio time or co-productions could be an alternative route to reaching new audiences in commemorating national events.</p>
<p>As the last bugle sounds on this epic production, BBC Radio should be congratulated on commissioning a risky but rewarding series. Many will miss it, some will not, but there is no denying the ambition which proves the value of public service broadcasting. And if you haven’t had the chance to listen, it will continue to be available for 10 years online.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Brooks works for the Institute of Coding funded by the Office for Students.</span></em></p>Over four years, this BBC Radio 4 drama chronicled the daily lives of ordinary people dealing with the hardships of World War I.Richard Brooks, Research Associate - Centre for Business in Society, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986192018-07-02T20:10:55Z2018-07-02T20:10:55ZTrust Me, I’m An Expert: What is sport worth?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223943/original/file-20180620-126531-1gn0d94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alvaro Mendoza/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even if you’re no great sports fan, you may have noticed a lot of it around lately. There were the Winter Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, and now we’re halfway through the 2018 FIFA World Cup. What isn’t always so obvious is the money and the diplomatic power plays lingering just below the surface of every big sporting meet. But a growing body of academic research is examining those elements and their complex interplay. </p>
<p>So today we’re talking about sports: its dollar value, who gets to participate in it, and why countries spend billions of dollars to strut their stuff on the international stage. </p>
<p>Here’s a taste of what’s in today’s episode:</p>
<h2>Sports diplomacy</h2>
<p>Barbara Keys, sports historian from the University of Melbourne, explains the lofty moral claims of international sporting events, and how they often contrast with the muddy realities of global politics. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-likely-winner-of-the-world-cup-putin-98215">One likely winner of the World Cup? Putin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>World Cup branding</h2>
<p>Every four years, companies get a massive opportunity to sponsor the FIFA World Cup and reach billions of consumers around the world. Recent scandals at football’s governing body, FIFA, however, have tarnished its brand and caused some Western companies to distance themselves from the world’s most popular sporting event. </p>
<p>Marketing professors Con Stavros at RMIT and Andrew Hughes at Australian National University discuss how brands are taking a different approach at this year’s World Cup, and why there’s so much Chinese signage visible in Russia’s stadiums.</p>
<h2>Come on, you girl barrackers!</h2>
<p>And finally, let’s take a moment to appreciate loud, passionate women in Australia’s sporting scene. Women’s AFL is not an aberration of a male-centred sport, but an extension of women’s long participation as enthusiastic supporters.</p>
<p>Matthew Klugman, a sports historian from Victoria University, told The Conversation that men haven’t created a space in footy for women – women have always been there. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-stereotypes-of-sexy-women-fans-persist-at-the-world-cup-98303">Why stereotypes of sexy women fans persist at the World Cup</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p>Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from <a href="https://www.elefanttraks.com/">Elefant Traks</a></p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Said_Lion_To_Lamb_Box_Set_Disc_3/Stages_Of_Awakening">Stages Of Awakening</a> by Podington Bear, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Said_Lion_To_Lamb_Box_Set_Disc_3/You_Wasted_My_Time_When_I_Was_Timewasting">You Wasted My Time When I Was Timewasting</a> by Podington Bear, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Meet_Podington_Bear_Box_Set_Disc_1/10_Kid_Is_Frangin">Kid Is Frangin</a> by Podington Bear, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Eaters/Simian_Samba/Eaters_-_Simian_Samba_-_12_Josimar">Josimar</a> by Eaters, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Eaters/Simian_Samba/Eaters_-_Simian_Samba_-_15_Zaire_54">Zaire ‘54</a> by Eaters, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Joplin/Frog_Legs_Ragtime_Era_Favorites/Scott_Joplin_-_08_-_Pine_Apple_Rag_1908_piano_roll">Pine Apple Rag</a> by Scott Joplin, from Free Music Archive</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As we reach the World Cup's halfway point, we're asking: what is sport worth? On today's episode, we explore the money and diplomatic power plays lingering behind the scenes of every big tournament.Madeleine De Gabriele, Deputy Editor: Energy + EnvironmentPhoebe Roth, Editorial InternJustin Bergman, International Affairs EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929302018-03-08T05:42:50Z2018-03-08T05:42:50ZEssays On Air: Joan of Arc, our one true superhero<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209059/original/file-20180306-146697-u12ku2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why did this woman, so devoted to her political cause and to her vision of a united France, chose to be burnt at the stake at the age of 19 instead of acquiescing to her judges’ directives?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One need not be a parent of a young child, as I am, to be conscious of the full-blown resurgence of the superhero in contemporary popular culture. But there is more to a hero than courage and strength.</p>
<p>On today’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/essays-on-air-48405">Essays On Air</a>, the audio version of The Conversation’s Friday essay series, I’m reading <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-joan-of-arc-our-one-true-superhero-81097">my essay on Joan of Arc, our one true superhero</a>.</p>
<p>She’s been depicted as a national heroine and a nationalist symbol (and also, to my and many a leftists’ dismay, a popular mascot by French ultra-nationalists), a rebellious heretic and a goodly saint. A feminist role model and a belligerent military leader, an innocent mystic and a tortured victim.</p>
<p>However one may choose to view her, there can be no denying that she is, and will continue to be, one of the most singular and significant exemplars of our troubled species. Forget Wonder Woman and Batman – Jeanne d’Arc may be our one and only true superhero.</p>
<p><em>Today’s episode was edited by Sybilla Gross. Find us and subscribe in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/essays-on-air/id1333743838?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a>, in <a href="https://play.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</em></p>
<h2><strong>Additional Audio</strong></h2>
<p>Snow by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/Cinematic/Snow">David Szesztay</a></p>
<p>Choral Music by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/">dobroide</a></p>
<p>Outdoor farming sounds by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/">klankbeeld</a></p>
<p>Superhero flash by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/oscaraudiogeek/">oscaraudiogeek</a> </p>
<p>I am Batman! And you are Dust! - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BizYBp4Z4vw">Warner Brothers</a></p>
<p>Fantasy Orchestra by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/bigmanjoe/">bigmanjoe</a></p>
<p>Horse Battle Sounds by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/Joao_de_Deus/">Joao_de_Dues</a></p>
<p>Four Voices Whispering by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/geoneo0/">geoneo0</a></p>
<p>Female battle cries by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/11linda/">11linda</a> </p>
<p>Book shop interior by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/mzui/">mzui</a></p>
<p>Pages turning by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/Zamazan/">Zamazan</a> </p>
<p>Ofelia’s Dream by <a href="https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/ofelias-dream">Bensound</a></p>
<p>Battle Horn 1 by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/kirmm/">kirmm</a></p>
<p>Victory Cry by <a href="https://freesound.org/people/chripei/">chripei</a></p>
<p>Rainy Day by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dee_Yan-Key/post_bellum/01--Dee_Yan-Key-Rainy_Holiday">Dee Yan-Key</a></p>
<p>Piano Movement by <a href="https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/piano-moment">Bensound</a></p>
<p>Jeanne d’Arc by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Xxlm5rbhI">Gaumont</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Alizadeh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joan of Arc has been depicted as a national heroine, nationalist symbol, a rebellious heretic and a goodly saint. Forget Wonder Woman and Batman – Jeanne d’Arc may be our one and only true superhero.Ali Alizadeh, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies and Creative Writing, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/919072018-03-01T07:19:25Z2018-03-01T07:19:25ZTrust Me I’m An Expert: The science of pain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208399/original/file-20180301-36683-kr12mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pain lets us know when there is something wrong, but sometimes our brains can trick us. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mai Lam/The Conversation NY-BD-CC</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As many as <a href="http://www.painaustralia.org.au/about-pain/painful-facts">one in five</a> Australians suffer from chronic and recurring pain. But despite its prevalence, it’s not always easy to find the help you need to manage it.</p>
<p>“When I went through medical school, we had about one hour on acute pain. And the whole concept of chronic pain and how it’s so very different from acute pain was not something that was ever on our horizon,” pain expert Professor Fiona Blyth says in the latest episode of The Conversation podcast <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/trust-me-im-an-expert-43810">Trust Me, I’m An Expert</a>.</p>
<p>On Trust Me, I’m An Expert, we ask researchers to take us behind the headlines and walk us through the research on issues making news. </p>
<p>Our latest episode takes a deep dive into the science of pain: what it is and what the evidence really says about how to manage it. Today, we’re talking about:</p>
<h2>What exactly is pain?</h2>
<p>Professor Lorimer Moseley explains to Deputy Health Editor Sasha Petrova what really happens in your body when you experience pain. Pain is meant to keep us safe, he says, but unfortunately your brain can play tricks on you, making you feel pain even when there’s no real need for it.</p>
<p><a href="https://bodyinmind.org/time-to-embrace-bioplasticity/">Bioplasticity</a> – the body and brain’s ability to train and change itself – could hold the key, he says. Here’s a taste:</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="22" data-image="" data-title="Professor Lorimer Moseley on bioplasticity" data-size="560344" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1065/bioplasticity.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Professor Lorimer Moseley on bioplasticity.
</div></p>
<h2>After the codeine crackdown, what now?</h2>
<p>We asked student Sabine Hamad, who has thus far managed her chronic and recurring pain with occasional codeine use, to join us in the studio with pain experts Professor Michael Nicholas and Professor Fiona Blyth, to talk about the recent ban on over the counter sales of codeine – and the alternatives.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="35" data-image="" data-title="Professor Michael Nicholas on making sense of someone's pain." data-size="855056" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1066/new-management-plan.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Professor Michael Nicholas on making sense of someone’s pain.
</div></p>
<h2>Australia’s opioid issues</h2>
<p>Ben Ansell spoke to Dr Suzanne Nielsen, a lead researcher from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, about growing concern around opioid addiction in Australia.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="37" data-image="" data-title="Dr Suzanne Nielsen on addiction." data-size="917840" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1067/outdated-practises.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Dr Suzanne Nielsen on addiction.
</div></p>
<h2>Talking about suicide and self-harm in schools can save lives</h2>
<p>Our last story is about a different kind of pain. Education editor Sophie Heizer spoke to Dr Sarah Stanford, whose research focuses on self-harm in schools, churches, and other community settings. Dr Stanford said there are helpful – and harmful – ways for schools to talk about suicide:</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="38" data-image="" data-title="Dr Sarah Stanford on suicide and self-harm prevention strategies." data-size="935121" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1068/suicide-prevention-strategies.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Dr Sarah Stanford on suicide and self-harm prevention strategies.
</div></p>
<p>For support, call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit <a href="https://headspace.org.au/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIstuN3oHK2QIVUY6PCh2ZoA_aEAAYASAAEgL69vD_BwE">Headspace</a>, which has information for schools, young people, and family and friends.</p>
<p>Trust Me, I’m An Expert is out at the start of every month. Find us and subscribe in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/trust-me-im-an-expert/id1290047736?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://play.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/">David Szesztay</a>, Backward, Free Music Archive</p>
<p>Kindergarten, Unkle Ho, from <a href="https://www.elefanttraks.com/">Elefant Traks</a></p>
<p>Poddington Bear, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Piano_IV_Cinematic/Storm_Passing">Storm Passing</a> from Free Music Archive</p>
<p>Poddington Bear, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Piano_IV_Cinematic/Paper_Boat_1597">Paper Boat</a>, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p>Poddington Bear, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Textural/Waves_1535">Waves</a>, from Free Music Archive</p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Letmeknowyouanatole/Universe_In_The_Bath/02_Letmeknowyouanatole-Universe_In_The_Bath">Letmeknowyouanatole</a>, Free Music Archive</p>
<p>Komiku, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/search/?sort=track_date_published&d=1&quicksearch=komiku">Resolution</a>, Free Music Archive</p>
<p>Kosta T, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kosta_T/">Free Music Archive</a></p>
<p>Audiobinger, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Audiobinger/%7E/Stress">Stress</a>, Free Music Archive.</p>
<p>Blue Dot Sessions, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/Migration/Paper_Feather">Paper Feather</a></p>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Hilowitz/Film_Music/David_Hilowitz_-_Film_Cue_013_-_A_Life_in_Pictures">A Life in Pictures</a> by David Hilowitz</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Our podcast Trust Me, I'm An Expert, goes beyond the headlines and asks researchers to explain the evidence on issues making news. Today, we're talking pain and what science says about managing it.Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorSasha Petrova, Section Editor: EducationSophie Heizer, Commissioning Editor, Education, The ConversationBenjamin Ansell, Editorial InternLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/919052018-02-22T06:39:18Z2018-02-22T06:39:18ZEssays On Air: On the Sydney Mardi Gras march of 1978<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206486/original/file-20180215-124899-1db4bz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marchers at the 1978 Mardi Gras parade. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sally Colechin/The Pride History Group</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a cold Saturday night in Sydney on June 24, 1978, a number of gay men, lesbians and transgender people marched into the pages of Australian social history. I was one of them.</p>
<p>On today’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/essays-on-air-48405">Essays On Air</a>, the audio version of The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/friday-essay-22955">Friday essay</a> series, Conversation editor Lucinda Beaman is reading <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-the-sydney-mardi-gras-march-of-1978-54337">my essay on the Sydney Mardi Gras march of 1978.</a></p>
<p>On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, it’s worth revisiting the events of that night and reflecting on the remarkable lesson that, for oppressed minorities, there comes a time when enough is enough. </p>
<p>Much has been achieved, but it would be a major mistake to relax and assume that history is progressively improving.</p>
<p>Join us as we read to you here at Essays On Air, a podcast from The Conversation.</p>
<p>Find us and subscribe in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/essays-on-air/id1333743838?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a>, in <a href="https://play.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</p>
<p><em>Today’s episode was edited by Sybilla Gross.</em></p>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p>Snow by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/Cinematic/Snow">David Szesztay</a></p>
<p>Tom Robinson, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxaSGdVUdV4">Glad to be gay</a>.</p>
<p>Mavis Staples, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcDpmzQh3YU">We shall not be moved</a></p>
<p>Podington Bear, Memory Wind, from <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Fathomless_-_Ambient/Memory_Wind">Free Music Archive</a></p>
<p>David Szesztay, Flash, from <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/">Free Music Archive</a></p>
<p>David Szesztay, Looking Back, from <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/20170730112627760/Looking_Back">Free Music Archive</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Gillespie is affiliated with The '78ers</span></em></p>On a cold Saturday night in Sydney on June 24, 1978, a number of gay men, lesbians and transgender people marched into the pages of Australian social history. I was one of them.Mark Gillespie, English for Academic Purposes Specialist, Anthropologist, Centre for English Teaching, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/847032017-09-27T03:51:30Z2017-09-27T03:51:30ZTrust Me, I’m An Expert: a new podcast from The Conversation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187526/original/file-20170926-25765-285ts8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On this podcast, academic experts separate the signal from the noise, the data from the anecdotes, explain the science, look at the peer-reviewed evidence and ignore the media hype.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trust Me, I’m An Expert is a new monthly podcast from The Conversation, where we bring you the most fascinating, surprising stories from the academic world.</p>
<p>On this show, we ask the experts to bust the myths, explain the science and put the news headlines into context – and to do it in a way we can understand and enjoy.</p>
<p>Listen to our teaser episode, above, to get a taste of the amazing stories ahead: experts explaining the dark history of Australia’s Catholic-Protestant divide or what the research can tell us about sibling rivalry or same-sex parenting.</p>
<p>On our first full-length 30 minute episode, out next week, we’re tackling the same-sex marriage debate with experts on the law and on health, and talking to a Bible scholar on what the Bible really says on this issue.</p>
<p>Find us and subscribe, on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Additional audio</strong></p>
<p>Q&A on ABC TV, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4624231.htm">The Misinformation Ecosystem</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IDF-8khS3w">CNN</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OG6itojBiI">WH.GOV</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGgiGtJk7MA">SkyNews</a></p>
<p><strong>Music</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Kindergarten, by Unkle Ho, <a href="https://www.elefanttraks.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIosCkzbbE1gIVz4ZoCh0GDwmcEAAYASAAEgLLmvD_BwE">Elefant Traks</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Thoughtful/LightTouch">Free Music Archive: Podington Bear - Light Touch.</a></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A new monthly podcast from The Conversation, where we bring you the most fascinating, surprising stories from the academic world.Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765102017-04-27T00:56:34Z2017-04-27T00:56:34ZWhy S-Town invites empathy not voyeurism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166765/original/file-20170426-13391-g69s12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brian Reed, host of S-Town, somewhere in the woods of Bibb County, Alabama.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrea Morales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>With <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/168642.In_Cold_Blood">In Cold Blood</a>, Truman Capote invented the non-fiction novel and turbocharged the genre of literary journalism. <a href="https://stownpodcast.org/">S-Town</a>, a podcast by the team at Serial and This American Life that appeared on March 28th as seven bingeable “chapters”, has unleashed aural literary journalism that is as masterly in its evocation of place and character as exemplars by Didion, Wolfe and Capote. </p>
<p>S-Town had 10 million downloads in the first four days, far surpassing even Serial. It has been rapturously reviewed by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/s-town-podcast-review-empathy-cultural-divides/521325/">The Atlantic</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/arts/true-crime-podcast-s-town-serial.html?_r=1">The New York Times </a> and respected podcasting critic Nicholas Quah in <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/review-s-town-podcast-serial.html">Vulture</a>. It has also been described as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/22/s-town-never-justifies-its-voyeurism-and-that-makes-it-morally-indefensible?">morally indefensible</a>” by The Guardian for its intrusion into the life of a mentally ill man and panned by other critics for <a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/30/15084224/s-town-review-controversial-podcast-privacy">breaching privacy</a>, glossing over <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/how-s-town-fails-black-listeners-w476524">racism</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/04/11/s_town_podcast_s_treatment_of_queer_experience_hobbled_by_straight_biases.html">misrepresenting</a> aspects of gay sexuality.</p>
<p>In order to assess all this, it is vital to consider not just the “what” of S-Town, i.e. the journalistic content, but also the “how”: the art form of choreographed audio storytelling, which S-Town exemplifies. </p>
<p>At the centre of the podcast is the mordant, self-destructive genius John B. McLemore, a forty-something fixer of antiquarian clocks who is both shaped and shackled by his small Shit Town (S-Town), actually Woodstock, Alabama. Literary journalists can only write about delicious details they unearth but S-Town gives us the real deal: we <em>hear</em> first-hand the magnificent rants about climate change, chicanery and ignorance that McLemore delivers with rococo Southern musicality and a stand-up’s timing.</p>
<p><a href="https://soundcloud.com/siobhan-uow/opera-and-rant-s-town-30secs-excerpt">Listen here</a> to how producers Brian Reed and Julie Snyder craft one rant around an operatic aria, delivering a kind of acoustic alchemy that both counterpoints and elevates John B’s vitriol.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We ain’t nothin’ but a nation of goddamn, chicken-shit, horse-shit, tattle-tale, pissy-assed, whiney, fat, flabby, out-of-shape, Facebook-lookin’, damn twerk-fest, peekin’ out the windows and snoopin’ around, listenin’ on the cellphones and spyin’ in the peephole and peepin’ in the crack of the goddamn door, listenin’ in the fuckin’ Sheetrock: Mr Putin puh-lease, show some fuckin’ mercy, I mean drop the fuckin’ bomb, won’t you?“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Opera swells in the background to climactic end, then he emits a heavy sigh.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I gotta have me some tea.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To add opera to a landscape of trailer trash, tattoos and "titty-rings” might seem incongruous, but then as Miss Irene Hicks tells Reed in a Blanche DuBois voice when he inquires after her grandson, Tyler, John B.’s hired hand: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have my medicine and I have my [Andrea] Bocelli.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In S-Town, journalism meets art. The episodes unfold via evocative scenes, intensive interviewing (perhaps a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/beaucoups-and-beaucoups-of-stuff?utm_term=.cujVwYpj6#.ob7aK3yEg">hundred hours</a>, Reed thinks) carefully placed encounters, and Reed’s metaphorical musings, but all is driven by sound, voice and the unalloyed intimacy of listening, in real time.</p>
<p>We meet Tyler via the “click, click, click” of a chainsaw he’s sharpening, tooth by tooth. Tyler doubles as a tattoo artist whose pop up parlour has a secret Whites Only bar out back. Reed records its misfit denizens’ casual racism and bravado. “Tell ‘em,” one implores. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m so fuckin’ fat I don’t care no more. I’m a six-foot, 350 lbs bearded man in a John Deere hat with FEED ME on my belly.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Bypassing our bigotry</h2>
<p>We listen in appalled fascination; audio can bypass our bigotry and suck us in to places where we normally wouldn’t go. As S-Town producer, Julie Snyder, recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-serials-julie-snyder-about-making-groundbreaking-podcasts-70411">told</a> me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In audio, it’s much easier to connect with the people in the story. You’re hearing their natural way of talking. You hear emotion, it’s not a polished thing. In film… you judge, the way they look, the way they’re dressed, the setting they’re in.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166575/original/file-20170425-12645-b6qynj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julie Snyder and Brian Reed of Serial productions’ S-Town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elise Bergerson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this medium, language achieves added force, the poetry of the South laced with the <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/creartspapers/345/">affective power</a> of sound. Tyler’s Uncle Jimmy, speech-damaged after a bullet lodged in his brain, echoes his nephew with strangely beautiful ejaculations reminiscent of Gospel affirmations. </p>
<p>“Beacoups and beacoups of stuff,” he sings out, after the murder Reed is investigating at John B’s request gives way to another, more tragic, death - that of John B. himself.</p>
<p>In the mother of all jaw-droppers, we learn that John B. has killed himself by drinking potassium cyanide. Reed’s shock and grief at this news are real. <a href="http://normansims.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/The-Literary-Journalists.pdf">Like many literary journalists</a>, he has become part of the story. He knows John B. is his subject, not his friend, but says he cared about him. Reed’s immersion grows after John B.’s suicide, taking him to S-Town “nine or ten” times more. </p>
<p>Critics of S-Town point out that John B. had initially approached Reed asking him to cover the story of a murder there – not to have his own suicide and life become the focus of it. As Gay Alcorn <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/22/s-town-never-justifies-its-voyeurism-and-that-makes-it-morally-indefensible">wrote this week</a> in The Guardian, the story became, “McLemore’s own painful journey, even though the eccentric clock restorer had never consented for his life to be investigated in this way”.</p>
<p>But it’s clear even before Reed meets John B. that the “murder” is less important to him than having the ear of a national radio reporter. “We’d end up on the phone for hours,” Reed says, “with him going on and on, not just about the murder, but about his life, and his town.” </p>
<p>Socially, intellectually and sexually isolated, John B. yearns for meaningful, non-judgemental contact. He is candid about his depression: he keeps a suicide note on his computer and has emailed the town clerk a list of people to be contacted in the event of his death. His mental illness, it will be suggested by Reed, probably derives from mercury poisoning; he has been ingesting mercury vapour for decades due to alchemical operations he practises when mending clocks. </p>
<h2>The value of being listened to</h2>
<p>In my experience as an oral historian, people greatly value being attentively listened to. When mortality looms, the impulse to place something on the record for posterity, to avoid being erased, can deepen. John B. talked openly about his suicide ideation and probably knew he did not have long to live. </p>
<p>I believe he reeled Reed into his life because Reed was the ideal person to bear witness: intelligent enough to engage with a swirling canvas, undeterred by John B’s “virtuosic negativity”, an outsider with no prior relationship with S-Town. As Reed says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It felt as if by sheer force of will, John was opening this portal between us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Once he stepped through that portal, Reed felt compelled to carry on: not to needlessly invade a life, but to honour the splendid, scabrous, sprawling complexity of the man who chose him as his chronicler. In so doing, he <a href="https://longform.org/posts/longform-podcast-239-brian-reed">validates, rather than violates</a>, the fierce, flawed life of John B. McLemore.</p>
<p>Still, in its treatment of John B’s sexuality, S-Town does tread on dangerous ground. John B. described himself as a “semi-homosexual”; he has had few and mostly unfulfilling relationships. And the listener wonders is Tyler (who at 25 has four kids by four women) John B.’s surrogate son or the object of thwarted desire? </p>
<p>Off the record, John B. tells Reed about a relationship he has had with a married man. Reed later interviews the man, though he does not play the tape. Still, he justifies including these and other details in the podcast because two others had confirmed them on the record and because John B. is by now “wormdirt”.</p>
<p>But by mentioning that the man once worked for John B., Reed does risk making listeners participate “in the unwitting outing of one queer man over the dead body of another”, as an insightful <a href="http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/30/15084224/s-town-review-controversial-podcast-privacy">Vox</a> article has suggested. </p>
<p>The final chapter of S-Town provides disturbing detail on what John B. called his “church” ritual with Tyler. According to John B. it involves getting “drunk as hell in the back room” and talking about everything from life and death to black holes and quarks. Tyler reveals, somewhat uncomfortably, that “church” also involved increasingly <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/inside-s-towns-tattoo-therapy-bdsm-or-self-harm-w476327">painful tattooing</a> that gave John B. “an endorphin high”. Some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/22/s-town-never-justifies-its-voyeurism-and-that-makes-it-morally-indefensible?">critics</a> argue that including this element crosses an ethical line.</p>
<p>It is shocking, certainly. But the way it unfolds, the listener can only empathise with John B. and appreciate how anguished he must have been to crave this momentary expunging of mental pain. It is a vital part of seeking to understand the man. And that was Reed’s simple, profound purpose.</p>
<p>The ability to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/s-town-podcast-review-empathy-cultural-divides/521325/">evoke empathy</a> is a cornerstone of audio and its deployment in S-Town is both timely and provocative. As Snyder <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sydneyoperahouse/sets/its-a-long-story">told</a> a Sydney audience last year: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Things that make them [people] human, you relate to that … There is nuance, there isn’t a monolithic way that certain people think, the Republicans think this way and Democrats think that way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Uncle Jimmy would say, Amen to that. </p>
<p><em>Anyone seeking support and information about suicide can contact Lifeline on 131 114 or beyondblue 1300 22 46 36.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a project that involves converting oral histories into crafted audio storytelling. She is Founding Editor of RadioDoc Review, a journal that critiques podcasts, radio documentaries and audio features.</span></em></p>The podcast S-Town has been both rapturously reviewed and described as ‘morally indefensible’ for its intrusion into the life of a mentally ill man. But it validates, rather than violates, a fierce, flawed life.Siobhan McHugh, Senior Lecturer, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/693972016-11-25T05:48:43Z2016-11-25T05:48:43ZChanges to Radio National are gutting a cultural treasure trove<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147528/original/image-20161125-15344-5knzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The latest RN makeover is largely about talk – a cheap format that costs little to produce.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracey Nearmy/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“RN is the home of big thinking, big ideas, and the national conversation,” <a href="https://radio.press.abc.net.au/ideas-network-rn-announces-2017-lineup">the statement </a>from ABC management said. It seems odd that, in pursuit of that notion, RN intends to halve the output of its documentary program, Earshot; cease almost all music broadcasting; abort its flagship sound art show, Soundproof, and a short-form storytelling show, PocketDocs; and dispense with the services of respected religious broadcaster John Cleary as well as seven music and features producers.</p>
<p>Cleary’s show, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/sundaynights/">Sunday Nights</a>, deals with “religion and ethics, beliefs and values, as they shape the issues affecting daily life in Australia and around the world”. Given how much religion has informed the geopolitical landscape since 9/11, it is extraordinary that the ABC would terminate a presenter who is not only manifestly expert in this sensitive area, but whose ratings are also remarkable. Often, they were within a few points of the popular host Tony Delroy, who until recently occupied the slot weeknights.</p>
<p>The new schedule continues the gradual undermining of the specialisation that has been crucial to RN’s output and success. RN producers are often noted experts or intellectuals in their field, with the added virtue of understanding the radio medium.</p>
<p>Their collective output is a cultural <a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-national-is-a-leader-in-cultural-radio-heres-why-26799">treasure trove</a>, which has been increasingly gutted – from the evisceration of radio drama and the loss of top-notch producers and shows in 2013 to the digital-driven remit of today. As Robyn Ravlich, an award-winning former RN producer who still freelances for the network, told me, the best public radio is about much more than talk:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The value of radio features and other creative forms is long-lasting … and beneficial in that complex ideas and stories can be told in imaginative ways that engage listeners. They are a necessary adjunct to more topical talk programs, which lose currency and value very quickly.</p>
<p>RN should not just be a collection of programs with talking heads that report on what’s happening. Public service broadcasting has a special mandate to create radio that is artistic and in itself a contribution to culture.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147525/original/image-20161125-15356-pcdfdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kim Williams.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the latest RN makeover is largely about talk – a cheap format that costs little to produce. There’s What Keeps Me Awake, a talkfest with “high-profile Australians” to be hosted by former News Corp boss Kim Williams; Arts Weekly, “a snappy conversational podcast about the arts”, hosted by Cassie McCullagh. A weekly panel-based show, God Forbid, will discuss religious and ethical issues – but only for an hour, compared to Cleary’s four.</p>
<p>There are positive changes. An Indigenous Unit will be created, along with three junior producer positions. But while hiring young producers could be said to bring fresh ideas and approaches, seasoned staff see it more cynically, as a recruitment of cheap labour. </p>
<h2>A toxic atmosphere</h2>
<p>So toxic is the atmosphere at RN that none of the RN employees I spoke to for this article would be named. At the time of writing, a meeting of some 60 Sydney staff had passed a unanimous motion of <a href="https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/abc-staff-pass-no-confidence-motion-management">no confidence</a> in RN management, complaining of a lack of consultation about the changes, an erosion of producer control over program content, an undermining of specialist content and a top-heavy management-to-producer ratio.</p>
<p>The changes were announced by Judith Whelan, RN’s new Head of Spoken Word Content – an appointment that senior staff found bizarre, given her lack of experience in audio (she is a former magazine and newspaper journalist and editor).</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147514/original/image-20161125-15362-zdrxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is tension within the network.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vanessa Pike-Russell/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Corporate-speak has crept into the creative realm, with one manager saying at a meeting this week that RN needed to deliver a “return on investment”. This is a departure from the loftier language of the ABC <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/how-the-abc-is-run/what-guides-us/legislative-framework/">Charter</a>, which describes “programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community”. </p>
<p>Recent ABC audience <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/7890592/data/abc-ozpod-audience-research-data.pdf#View%20the%20full%20survey%20results%20and%20research.">research</a> into podcasts delineates listener demographics by age. Says one RN staffer: “That may work for selling shoes but it does not apply to purveying knowledge.” The push, the staffer says, is for content that is “young, sexy, funny or foodie”.</p>
<p>Much of the tension at RN derives from a division between the digital-first operations of the network (which make podcasts such as the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/firstrun/">First Run</a> series and ran a popular <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/ozpod/">OzPod</a> conference in September) and the longstanding “linear” RN producers, presenters and sound engineering staff. </p>
<p>The latter resent being portrayed as “fuddy-duddy, leftie conservatives, resistant to technical change”, as one put it, given that, since the days of the crystal set, radio has never been static – and RN has often been ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>While podcasting has enjoyed a <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-didnt-kill-the-radio-star-shes-hosting-a-podcast-59987">much-vaunted boom</a> since 2014, UK media scholar Kate Lacey has pointed out that “radio invented liveness, mass communication, participatory media and mobility”. But what’s old is new, and if <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/rn-podcasting/">podcasting</a> can help RN grow the “30+ digitally-savvy audiences” that, according to a recent memo, “the ABC is seeking to capture” (and garner the desired one in every two Australian listeners), it needs to be harnessed to the hilt. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147516/original/image-20161125-15365-1m8daxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There will be new podcast-first offerings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rawpixel.com/shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As part of the changes, there will be new podcast-first offerings: The Edge, a science and health-themed show hosted by polymath broadcaster Natasha Mitchell; This is About – about “the beautiful, awkward and dismal stuff that actually happens to people” – and The Real Thing, a show about “real Australia”.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, an internal “RN Production House” will create audio-rich packages to mark significant events, embed content across the network and produce short-form and history-based work as podcasts.</p>
<h2>An international success story</h2>
<p>Nowhere does the ABC management press release say why there should be a “focus on key specialist talk content”, as opposed to, say, documentary.</p>
<p>RN’s expertise in documentaries and features is world-beating, as its swag of prestigious awards, from the Prix Italia to the New York Radio Festival, shows. This <a href="http://australianaudioguide.com/radio-is-dead-long-live-radio-documentaries-and-features/">decades-old tradition</a> has been continually eroded, with the earlier axing of lauded shows such as Radio Eye, The Listening Room, The Night Air, 360 Documentaries and <a href="https://theconversation.com/axing-hindsight-and-rear-vision-would-be-historically-shortsighted-32226">Hindsight</a>, RN’s history showcase. </p>
<p>Yet outside Australia, the perception of RN’s features’ success is very different. Former BBC producer and Prix Italia winner Alan Hall, who now runs an independent UK audio production company, says of the changes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It appears bizarre deliberately to diminish the ABC’s distinctiveness and quality – in the loss of PocketDocs, Soundproof and much more – at a time when the global nature of the audio landscape has seen a great movement of listeners … beyond national borders. The best Australian radio production speaks across the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Prominent American audio figure Julie Shapiro founded Soundproof in 2014 and is now executive producer of <a href="https://www.radiotopia.fm">Radiotopia</a>, an independent podcast network in the US, which makes the kind of podcasts whose success RN’s First Run seeks to emulate. Writing of the changes in US public media outlet <a href="http://transom.org/2015/julie-shapiro/">Transom.org</a>, Shapiro said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The loss of Soundproof and what it stands for – honouring creativity and imagination, taking risks, and believing in the power and importance of art in our lives – is everyone’s loss.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Earlier this week, Fairfax Media caused a kerfuffle by reporting that RN was expected to “cease to exist as an on-air transmission by the year 2020”. The story was quickly pulled. Soon after, the ABC issued a firm <a href="http://about.abc.net.au/statements/abc-statement-regarding-changes-to-rn-22-november-2016/">repudiation</a>. It said in part: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are categorically no plans to end linear broadcasting on RN. We expect it to be a full linear service well beyond 2020. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whelan emailed RN staff “to put to bed once and for all the false idea that RN is slated for a digital-only future”. The idea of a podcast-only RN disturbs many as it would mean less equitable access to its valuable content for those Australians without adequate internet or phone support. </p>
<p>There are other reasons why maintaining RN as an actual radio network is vital. The serendipity of hearing something you didn’t expect to come across, which happens when you switch on a radio but is less likely in a self-curated podcast ecology, is crucial if we are to counter the echo chambers that arguably contributed to the rise of demagogues such as Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Some experienced RN hands see the latest changes as being about something quite sinister – the eventual dismantling of RN. “Digital is only a smokescreen,” one told me. </p>
<p>Others see the promotion of conservative figures such as Kim Williams and Tom Switzer (who has links to the right-wing IPA think-tank) as ominous signs of a political agenda.</p>
<p>It has been rumoured for years that key shows Breakfast, Drive and investigative program Background Briefing might be transferred out of RN to the jurisdiction of News.</p>
<p>If that were to happen – and with production expertise asset-stripped, music performance culled and so many features and specialist programs gone or scattered incoherently in a podcast-first sphere – the undermining of the “big thinking” RN would be well on the way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She has produced many documentaries for ABC RN and continues to be associated with RN as a freelance producer. She has an association with Fairfax Media, as consulting producer on the podcast Phoebe's Fall.</span></em></p>Sweeping changes proposed at Radio National undermine the network’s specialist knowledge and documentary-making savvy. Yet amid the echo chambers of social media, we need RN more than ever.Siobhan McHugh, Senior Lecturer, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.