CRSP Talk: Exploring podcast options for knowledge mobilization (transcript)

Before we really take a deep dive into audio storytelling – we need to break that up. First let’s talk about audio and then we’ll tackle storytelling. Audio itself is so important, because audio is intimate. In audio, we cut out the distractions and we focus on what is being said. Audio allows us to really listen, to build scenes with sounds your ear recognizes and to have conversations that we might not have in front of a camera. We’ve been using audio to connect with each other for a long, long time; from early audio recordings, to radio and phone communication, audiobooks and now podcasting. Audio connects.

Storytelling doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Often when we think about the word ‘story’ we think fairy tales, storybooks or tall tales – something made up. But when we say “story” here we are talking about telling true stories. Storytelling allows us to connect non-fiction stories with an audience by engaging them in the audio story. To do that we need to pull out the human elements, the human angle and connect that humanity with a listener. That’s how we get a listener to understand the guts of the story.

Stories make us human, that’s how we connect and why we connect.

“I think that stories make us human, only by telling them do we stay so.”
–Jacqui Banaszynski’s, Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University

Why Podcast?

Podcasting offers a listener content that’s both mobile and on-demand. You no longer have to tune into the radio at a specific time to hear the news, an interview or a specific show. It’s in the palm of your hand. You can listen anywhere: in your car, on a run, while you cook, or even as you lie in bed at night. The podcasting apps also give you the ability to customize how you want to hear the podcasts you love – where, which podcasts, how often, at what speed and more. As a medium, podcasting offers storytellers the opportunity not only to capture those running, cooking and driving audiences anywhere, but also to tell stories with very little barrier to entry. Anyone can start a podcast. Budgets can be low and equipment can be lacking and you can still tell a story and connect with people. You can make a podcast with a smartphone, an internet connection and not much else.

The great thing about people who listen to podcasts is that they are loyal. Podcast listeners will shout from the rooftops for the shows they love. When you’re a loyal podcast subscriber you feel like you’re part of something. And in return podcasting offers a listener something different – to feel like they actually know the people presenting the podcast to them. It’s like a symbiotic audio club.

The Podcasting Basics

Officially for audio to be labelled a “podcast” it must be a piece of audio uploaded to an RSS feed to be disseminated to the podcasting apps of the creator’s choice. RSS stands for really simple syndication or – depending on who you’ve asked – rich site summary. It’s basically a collecting space for information stripped down to simple text files, which makes for easier loading and compatibility when plugged into a feed reader. It’s a way to push updated content to a platform in a simple way. These days “podcast” has become the catch-all term for long-form, engaging audio. What used to be radio documentary is now largely audio performed on a podcasting platform, content played through the radio is often repurposed as a podcast, podcasting can be an audio blog – sky is the limit.

There are three ways podcasts are delivered: Seasonal, Episodic or Serial. Seasonal podcasts present their content much like TV shows, with seasons and often a pause between each one. Episodic podcasts on the other hand operate in a rolling manner – usually with new episodes published on a regular schedule whether weekly, twice a week, biweekly or monthly. If your podcast is a serial, usually that means the podcaster is telling one story as a series of episodes with a beginning and an end. A serial podcast might have 10 episodes and will only ever publish those 10 episodes. Many true crime podcasts are told as serials, including one actually called Serial, one of the most popular podcasts of all time which is also credited with introducing listeners to the medium in droves in 2014.

When it comes to length for a podcast, it doesn’t have to be long to be good. In fact, one of the emerging trends in podcasting is micro-podcasts or podcast episodes that are under 10 minutes long. As the medium moves mainstream, some listeners just want bite-sized content, but don’t be surprised when you find a podcast episode that is over two hours long. Many podcasters use long-form approaches to tell their stories, and their loyal podcast audience will listen.

Generally, a podcast’s popularity is tracked through downloads, or how many times an episode of the podcast has been downloaded (whether on a phone, browser or other listening device). With over a million podcasts published on podcasting platforms, some podcasts have a huge number of downloads and others have comparatively miniscule downloads – and that’s okay. When we talk about podcasting we need to be realistic about how many people we will reach. Often podcasts are targeted at very niche audiences, and niche podcasts do well. Do they get huge numbers? Not always, but if you can craft an audio show that attracts the kind of listeners you’re looking for (even in small numbers) you can launch a successful podcast. 200 downloads per episode by some incredibly engaged listeners that are part of the niche audience you need to communicate with can be just as important as getting 10,000 downloads per episode by listeners who aren’t committed to the story. In fact, for the majority of those million plus podcasts, audiences are quite small.

Podcasting and Knowledge Mobilization

When it comes to knowledge mobilization – podcasting is just one of the ways to reach an audience. Telling true stories across multiple mediums or platforms offers the opportunity to connect with new audiences in each place. In podcasting you will find listeners who have never read a peer-reviewed article, or someone who doesn’t engage with television news, but listens to podcasts every single day. Telling the story of your research is something you should try to do on multiple platforms to reach new audiences from different places, with different interests – and podcasting is definitely a medium that should be on the list.

Before we head into how podcasters tell their stories let’s take a minute to bust a little podcasting myth. There’s lots of marketing out there that will tell you anyone, anywhere can make a podcast, and that message is not wrong. With a microphone and some editing software (and sometimes even just a smartphone) you can make a podcast. But talking into a microphone, editing some audio, posting a new episode to your RSS feed – that’s the easy part. Actually crafting your story in a way that draws people in, keeps them listening and educates them on something is the hard part. Anyone can make a podcast – that doesn’t mean anyone can create a podcast people will enjoy listening to. Maybe that’s harsh, but when I give people advice on the podcast project they are making I always urge them to think about the listener and to really hone in on the story. Figure out where it connects, focus on the most interesting takeaways, work hard to keep people listening and lastly, don’t let poor quality audio distract the listener from the story you are trying to tell.

The Podcasting Formats Explained

When you decide to tell a story in audio, there isn’t one way to structure it. There are so many different ways to build a podcast episode and each of those ways work differently based on the kind of story you want to tell and the amount of time you can dedicate to it. We are going to explore four of the major formats used to tell true stories: Monologue, Chat Cast, Interview Style and Narrative or Documentary. We will lay them out and discuss the pros and cons and we’re going to give you some suggestions for podcasts you can listen to that use that specific format and skew a little bit more towards an academic lens. Just choose your favourite podcasting app – if you don’t have a favourite podcasting app, well… Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts are the big three, and then there’s a whole list of other apps all with different features and functionalities you might enjoy – you could try Stitcher, Radio Public, Pocket Casts, Overcast, TuneIn, the list goes on.

Monologue

Monologue is the easiest and quickest podcast format to pull off. Why? Because all you need is your voice, a microphone and some audio editing. There’s no scheduling of guests, you don’t have to count on anyone else to contribute and you can control what content makes it to the mic. The good news is it only relies on you. The bad news is it only relies on you. You as the host of a monologue podcast have to be an engaging enough storyteller to keep people listening. Other than some music, your voice is the only thing the listener is going to hear for the entirety of the episode, so you need to bring it.

For a monologue podcast you can read off a script, or lots of podcast hosts feel much more comfortable scribbling down some point form notes, deciding on some kind of structure and then just going for it off the cuff. There’s no right way to perform a monologue podcast, as long as you’re bringing your own special performance to it. Either way, what’s important is that you try as hard as you can to sound conversational – to sound like yourself. It sounds funny to say, but anyone who works in audio will tell you that sounding like yourself in front of a microphone is actually one of the most difficult parts of podcasting. It can take years and years of practice to make sure what you say into the microphone is what you would say and how you would say it in a real life conversation.

A few subgenres worth noting here. Monologue podcasts could be performed in diary style (very personal stories, read aloud), rants (think Rick Mercer style), essays, solo storytelling or sometimes as guided meditation podcasts.

Podcast Recommendations

In Depth, Out Loud is presented by The Conversation UK as an audio-only version of articles written by academics. From why IVF changed the way we think about fertility to how the potato fuelled the rise of liberal capitalism – In Depth, Out Loud is a great example of a podcast repurposing academic articles for an audio-loving audience.

• In Depth, Out Loud on Apple
• In Depth, Out Loud on Spotify

Interview

Far and away this is the most well used style of podcast out there today. Interview podcasts feature a different guest on every episode, making it the hosts job to lead the conversation in an interesting way. Remember here, that just because a podcast is in interview style, doesn’t mean the creator of the podcast isn’t responsible for telling the story. The host of an interview podcast needs to be well researched and is responsible for asking questions on a story arch. There should be a beginning and middle and an end to every interview podcast episode and the host is responsible for touching on each at the right time through the interview. One of the reasons interview-style is used often in podcasts is that the guest becomes the theme of the episode – there’s built-in content with a guest and the hosts curiosity can lead the episode forward. Interview podcasts can also be easily done virtually, which make it accessible to anyone making a podcast with an internet connection.

Podcast Recommendations

On Ologies, host and science correspondent Alie Ward describes her podcast simply with the tagline “Asking smart people stupid questions” – but really this is an extremely well put together podcast featuring interviews with various “ologists” on what fuels their study.

• Ologies on Apple
• Ologies on Spotify

A Laurier Spotlight: One Market. One Market was launched by Digital Media and Journalism Program Coordinator and Associate Professor Tarah Brookfield. The podcast was launched to welcome guests from Laurier’s Brantford campus as a way to connect during a time of pandemic.

• One Market on Apple
• One Market on Spotify

Honourable mentions: The Rights Track which is “hard facts about human rights challenges facing us today” and Artificial Intelligence with Lex Fridman featuring “conversations about the nature of intelligence, science, and technology from the perspective of deep learning, robotics, AI, AGI, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, economics, physics, mathematics, and more”.

Chat Cast (Conversational)

We define chat-cast as two or more people joining together to discuss a specific topic. There may be some research and preparation involved before the microphones are turned on, but once the recorder is rolling the show is largely conversational and improvised. It’s more like a conversation around a table or over coffee than an interview. A conversational podcast could include a panel, a roundtable or just two or three hosts chatting over coffee. That’s not to say the conversation isn’t structured, it’s just not scripted. The hosts are still expected to give the story of their podcast episode some structure, but the conversation can happen naturally once the topic is introduced.

A note here to tell you that chat cast is easy in some ways and not in others. There’s no script, so that’s a little easier – and you can rely on another or multiple people to help move the conversation forward, but there are also some challenges. The logistics of having multiple hosts or guests can make this format a little more laborious both technically and logistically. Also, you need to count on charisma between both the hosts and guests to draw the listener in and keep them tuned in – and that can come with time and practice.

Podcast Recommendations

A fun and quirky suggestion here – a great example of a well-educated chat-chat is the podcast Sawbones. Hosts and partners Justin and Dr. Sydnee McElroy call the show a “Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine” where they break down the weird, gross and dangerous approaches to medical problems through the ages.

• Sawbones on Apple
• Sawbones on Spotify

Also, take a swing at The Annex Sociology Podcast. The Annex describes itself as a podcast for academic sociologists. It does a great job of posing questions and discussing topics of interest to the academic sociology community. Some episodes are presented as one-on-one discussions and others feature a panel of guests discussing an idea or research area of interest.

• Annex Sociology Podcast on Apple
• Annex Sociology Podcast on Spotify

Documentary (Narrative)

This is the most involved and hardest to make podcast format, but very pleasing to the ears. Before podcasting audio documentaries existed primarily on the radio, either on the CBC in Canada, National Public Radio in the US or on community radio stations in both countries. Usually stories told in this style take a lot of research, a fair amount of reporting and can take many weeks or months to make per episode. Documentary stories are very polished and professionally engineered, with either a narrator guiding the story through a set structure, or as sounds stitched together to tell a sorry without a narrator – we call this a soundscape. In Documentary style, usually the listener hears from a number of different voices on the same topic, mixed with captured sound, music and when applicable archival tape. Documentary-style radio shows like Radiolab or This American Life were some of the early adopters of the podcast platform, bringing with them large built-in audiences who were pleased to have a way to listen to their favourite public radio show on demand, rather than waiting by the dial. Since then, true crime podcasts have also taken to adopting this style as a way to present a story through podcasting – a lot of them extremely successfully.

Documentary is at its core a venture in both reporting and storytelling – and for that reason, there’s a ton of work that can go into producing an episode in this format. Often you’ll find a long list of team members (think producers, reporters, fact checkers, sound engineers, editors, production managers) listed at the end of a documentary podcast episode, or detailed on a podcast’s website. That’s because this style takes a lot of work and more than a few bodies to pull off well.

There are, of course, easier ways to tell narrative-style stories used in podcasting that don’t require a whole team of producers. Stripping a story down to just a narrator setting the scene and teeing up clips from interviews they performed is sometimes more approachable and still a great way to tell a story.

Podcast Recommendations

If you’re looking for some examples of academic research used in a documentary or narrative style podcast, check out these two award-winning Canadian shows made by the same production company. Cited is, a recently relaunched podcast funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In each episode, journalists enlist a Canadian faculty member as a research advisor and a graduate student to provide research support. The result is engaging, beautifully told and fully cited stories told using academic research.

• Cited on Apple
• Cited on Spotify

The team from Cited also created the podcast Crackdown, which is described as “the drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents.” It’s beautifully made.

• Crackdown on Apple
• Crackdown on Spotify

Some honorable mentions in this style – bigger and more broad – are Hidden Brain, 99% Invisible and Distillations.

Next Steps

Monologue, Chat Cast, Interview and Documentary are the main formats podcasters use to structure the stories they are telling in audio. For the purposes of this lesson we’ve focused mainly on formats used to tell true stories, though many fiction-based podcasts also used these formats. It’s important to mention that with so many different podcasts vying for the attention of listeners doing something different than everyone else is often a necessary tactic to creating buzz and garnering praise. Many podcasters will bring their own style to creating their show by blending two or more of these formats together. Understanding these formats and how they are best used to tell a story helps you to choose your own style and build your own format. Don’t feel like you need to stick to a specific format when you’re building a podcast; creativity is always encouraged.

If you want to start your own podcast the first thing you need is an idea. Write down your idea like you’re pitching it to a friend (or, actually pitch it to a friend). Once you have your idea, take a good look at how much time you have to dedicate to both creating the content and editing the audio – this will help you decide which format to use. Choose a format that is both realistic for your lifestyle and helps you to best tell the stories you want to tell. From there, find yourself a microphone, record some audio and choose an audio editor. For podcasting we use “multi track audio editors” (some examples are Audacity, Adobe Audition, Reaper, Hindenburg Journalist) and each of those editors will have more than a few YouTube how-to’s dedicated to building a podcast episode. Then all you need to do is choose a podcast hosting platform like Simplecast, Libsyn, Blubrry or Anchor and each will walk you through how to get your first episode posted on the podcasting apps. There are lots of places that will give you a quick education in how to podcast. For a great place to start head to PRX’s Podcasting 101 series on YouTube.

Alternatively, if your interest is in being featured as a guest on a podcast here’s some simple advice: pitch yourself. There are hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there always looking for expert guests. Find a few that fit your research area of interest, or where your work could add to the conversation and send them a tweet, a direct message or an email.

Whether your audio story is suited for a monologue, interview, chat cast or a documentary (or your own special blend of these four and their sub formats) what matters most is that you’re thinking about how to make the best connection with a listener. What is the most engaging thing about the story you want to tell? How does it make a listener feel? What does the listener want to know more about? What question is the most important to answer? How is the story not being told anywhere else? Podcasting can be a great way to reach a new audience, so whether you are making your own podcast or appearing as a guest on someone else’s podcast, keep story top of mind and the listener in your ear.

Story matters, because story connects.