CRMCS Seminar

Seminar Presentation at the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sunderland:

‘Just because you play a guitar and are from Nashville doesn’t mean you are a country singer’ The case for Podcast Studies.


In 2017 the term “podcasting” became a teenager. Like any teenager it is now increasingly rebelling against its parents, experimenting with new practices, and behaving in a way that the older media might find in-appropriate. Podcasting has evolved from a space where remediated radio programmes dominated, into a ‘Second Age of Podcasting’ of podcasting (Bonini, 2015). An age where the podcast space has become professionalised, commercialised, and increasingly self-aware. This paper frames a conversation on the place of podcasts in the media environment, through theoretical framing and a small online survey of podcasters.

By reflecting on podcastness we can perhaps reach new understandings and concepts of what podcasting and the key relationship between radio and podcasting. The paper will argue that whilst radio exists in the podcast space, there is an increasing sense that podcasters are defining their own practices and their own identities as producers of work that is wholly independent of radio. It is this sense of difference, that I suggest means there are good grounds to argue for use of podcast studies as a new frame of reference.

Play the audio, or look at the slides – or both. I’d make a video if I knew how to!!