Podcasts

I really love podcasts as a form of communication and as a for of content distribution and consumption.  I took a while to reflect on this and I tried to pick apart why I love the medium so much and I think I have managed to pin down what it is I like and also the things I don't like but we will get to those in a bit.

First and foremost I have always been a fan of one-way communication, by this I mean any medium where you are given essentially static content that you consume first before you get to do anything with it.  So for example, Music is a form of one-way communication because you listen to the content, in this case a song, without the ability in the moment to interact and engage with the source of that content, in this case the singer.  Movies are another form of one-way communication, you don't get to interact with anything in the movie as you watch it.  Books, blogs, and other written forms of communication typically fall into this classification too.  The reason I love this type of communication is because you know what to expect to an extent before you consume it, you also know roughly how long it will take you to consume it, and you generally get to decide for yourself when you consume it, at a time and place that is convenient to you.  Also in deference to social anxiety it also removes the element of expectation of a reply.

Most of these forms of communication are designed to create content that is consumed either once or repeatedly without expectation of a response, and in many of these cases traditionally there wasn't even a method for you to respond; you generally didn't get the opportunity to give feedback, or praise, or comment on any of these things to the people that created them.  Then came the advent of interactive media, which took these forms of communication to another level, where the content went from being static to being something you could interact with.  There was a time when the Music industry pre-Internet promoted the idea of fan clubs, where fans where actively encouraged to build communities centred around artists, in return the music industry facilitated interaction with those artists.  Official fan clubs would have interviews with the artists, photo shoots, extra behind the scenes information, additional content that regular consumers didn't see.  For a time there were magazines devoted to this concept some on a smaller level specific to an individual artist, and some on an industry-wide scale where multiple artists were featured.  In the UK the best example of the latter would be Smash Hits Magazine which ran for 28 years.

Movies attempted to have similar forms of engagement although a greater emphasis was placed on producing additional content and with the advent of DVD in the late 90s the push to create interactive content was noticeable but this interactivity was limited because it was essentially branched static content, you didn't actually have influence over the content itself.  Nevertheless the idea persisted, to create content that was more engaging, this was something the Movie industry never managed to achieve in any practical sense.  Arguably the point at which a Movie actually becomes interactive it evolves into the realm of gaming, in particular narrative gaming or story based game-play.

Similarly the publishing industry never really managed to create books that were interactive until the advent of digital publishing and even then the content was still limited to branching of static content.  Without allowing the reader to get involved in the writing process there isn't really a practical way to make this kind of content something you can engage with on that level.  Some authors were able to make this transition however and create expanded universes for their content, these universes went beyond the initial publications and created something that the reader could actually engage with.  Very few authors have been able to do this though and arguably only those that had massive success financially were even given the opportunity to try.

Then with the growth of the Internet and the emergence of platforms like Blogger and Wordpress the drive to find user generated content became a focus and this exploded and left behind a pit that descends into the deepest abyss imaginable.  Blogs became one of the most prolific forms of user generated content online before social networks took their place.  Nevertheless to this day blogs still exist as one of the easiest ways to encourage engagement because the act of blogging in itself is engagement.  Where the Music industry recognised the creative process could not involve the consumer so a secondary experience based around common consumption was needed, and where the publishing industry recognised that engagement centred around a single publication were limited by the imagination of the author, those who created blogging platforms recognised that both of these could be combined, to create platforms where the imagination of each consumer contributes to the platform as a whole and the size of the platform constantly grows as a result.  You are not only encouraged to consume content but to create your own, contribute to the creative process of others, provide comment, feedback, praise, criticism, and generally propagate what would otherwise be an empty room in essence.

Blogging has its limitations however, the written word can only convey meaning to an extent, it lacks context without the author explicitly providing it.  The video based equivalent - vlogging - emerged as an answer to this problem, not only do you get the content that would have been written, but you also get the context of tone, presence, progression, and the emotion that the creator holds in mind all with little effort on their part as these are naturally conveyed implicitly through spoken word.  The trouble with vlogging however is that visual media is just that, inherently visual.  What you produce is judged on the visual appeal which is a problem if you want to convey anything of substance.  No disrespect to vloggers but it is undeniable that the first thing you will be judged on before you even open your mouth in any of your videos is the lighting, resolution, aspect ratio, contrast, gain, focus, ISO of the camera you are using, then the audio quality, continuity, branding, camera placement, then we get to the vlogger themselves, what they wear, what they look like, are they attractive, and everything else is all factored in before you even begin to speak at length on the subject you want to talk about.

Podcasts seem to be the answer to the question of how to incorporate the advantages of vlogging into the traditional format of a blog by removing most of the visual distractions.  You gain all of the advantages of having the written word articulated as you intended it when written when it is delivered in this way.  It also allows you to break free from the constraints of grammar, syntax, and much of the structural limitations of using text based communication to the point where you can create content that is much more conversational and arguably easier to digest for the consumer.  Through it all however you are brought back again to the concept of one-way communication.  A podcast is recorded and distributed, and then consumed.  At the point of consumption you generally don't have any interaction - some producers get around this by streaming their production process so that those who want to interact get to do so at the time and that gets incorporated into the final static process.

In the absence of streaming, the only real way to facilitate interaction with a podcast is to create a community around it, either on the platform that the podcast is distributed through, or via social media or an official website that acts as a companion to the podcast.  These are all delayed interactions though so they have influence over future publications but not over what is already out there, the latter is limited only to feedback. 

What I like about podcasts is that you get to consume the content without any expectations placed on you.  You can consume it whenever you want, you can do other things at the same time because you need only listen, no visual engagement or focus is needed.  You are placed in a very different mentality listening to a podcast than with other forms of media as a result of the fact that they are typically conversational, but the crux here is that a conversation is usually a two-way experience but as we have already stated at length, this is one-way which means you're essentially being placed in the mentality of being receptive.  By this I mean, in a truly receptive conversation each side would hear the other out before giving their response.  I listen to podcasts and think more about what the person is saying than I would if they were in front of me saying the exact same thing purely because we are conditioned to expect conversations to be two-way and the absence of response is seen as rude, or ignorant when in reality refusing to hear someone out is rude and ignorant.

To that end I would say in a rather bizarre statement, that a podcast is the opportunity to have a conversation where the other person hears you out before they respond.  That is of course if you give the consumer the opportunity to respond, some podcast creators don't have communities created to accompany their productions and don't engage at all.  I have noticed however that the most successful podcasts do facilitate this response, as I said above this is done through either social media, the podcast distribution platform, or through companion websites.  I've seen some very interesting conversations emerge as a result of podcasts and I think that is entirely down to the fact that you listen to the podcast before you comment, you hear the other person out.

The other main reason why I love podcasts is because it shifts peoples' perceptions quite a bit in terms of the creators and their guests.  On more than one occasion I have seen a title of an episode mention the guest and fully anticipate the episode to be a train wreck and then find my perception of the guest flipped on its head when they are in a situation where they sit and talk without dramatics, without cameras to play to, without anything "extra" and have to rely on their spoken word to communicate.  When we talk about the creative process there is a state of mind referred to a "flow" which is achieved when the artist manages to engage in the creative process and let their consciousness flow freely.  When you listen to podcasts and get to hear the creators and their guests discuss topics without everything else attached to them you get to experience this flow and with it you gain a greater insight into the person behind the creation.

I will also say this has also made me realise some people are in the wrong job - this is something I have said before in respect of other industries but this insight in particular really makes you see how some people rely on certain facets of their public persona to generate their fame and fortune whilst completely discarding that which is arguably much more substantial and meaningful, then again that also reflects the reality that people are often overlooked in the fields where they would excel given the chance and opportunity to do so.