Listen! Podcasts in English

HOW TO ANALYSE A PODCAST In this section you’ll learn how to analyse and interpret podcasts.

Our main focus is on those podcasts that tell stories, but we’ll also dip into all those that share ideas and opinions. We’re going to equip you with all the right tools so you know how to listen closely and explore the content and sound design of a podcast.

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Podcasts are a wide-ranging audio medium that’s difficult to narrow down to just one definition. You can probably find a podcast on every single topic you can think of – from hardcore economics to grooming horses, and everything in between. Some podcasts are mainstream, consisting of friendly banter on films, sports, relationships, and everyday matters. Other podcasts are much more niche, presenting complex and nerdy ideas from across a field of science or knowledge – political, medical, literary, etc. Some podcasts are exquisitely produced with voice actors, music, and sounds effects. Others simply consist of 2-3 hours of unedited conversation.

So, podcasts are many things to many people, which makes it seem a daunting task to try to define the medium. One way to do just that is to look at the technology behind it.

PODCASTS VS. RADIO

Podcasts are somewhat similar to traditional radio but based on a different technology. Radio programmes are transmitted as radio waves in

BRAINSTORM 10

THE BRAINSTORM Let’s start off with a quick chat about podcasts: Team up with another student and brainstorm on everything you know about this audio medium. For example: • How do you access and listen to podcasts?

• Who makes podcasts?

• Do you yourselves listen to any podcasts on a regular basis – what kind, why, and when?

Afterwards, share your findings in class and try to come up with a preliminary answer to the question posed in the headline: What is a podcast?

Nowadays, radio is broadcast in the form of digital DAB-signals to radio receivers in our homes or cars. Traditional radio is still a push medium, but with the rise of the podcast medium many radio stations have chosen to offer their programmes as podcasts as well.

the air and received by us listeners tuning in at regular and specific time slots. They are usually produced professionally to be broadcast by radio stations. In media terms, radio is a so-called push medium because the programmes are pushed towards us, and we can either receive them or ignore them. In many households, the radio is placed somewhere where several people can hear the programmes – in the kitchen, living room, or in the car: The chatter, news, or music become an easy-to-listen-to (and easy-to-ignore) backdrop.

Podcasts, on the other hand, are a pull medium: They are distributed online in the form of audio files and we listeners choose when to stream and listen to them. We become the active part. We usually enjoy podcasts on our own through earbuds or headphones. By excluding all surrounding noises, we pay more attention to what we hear.

Furthermore, since microphones and audio-editing software are quite cheap to come by nowadays, podcasts are produced by professionals and amateurs alike. We can all share our stories, thoughts, and ideas with the world no matter how nerdy the subject matter is. All it takes is time devoted to preparing, recording, editing, and uploading the podcast online.

So, compared to traditional radio, podcasts are a much more democratic medium: There is no broadcasting company or editor to decide on

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the content – no time restrictions either. Instead, there’s a feeling that the producers and listeners are free to communicate more directly with each other, sharing their personal interest in a topic.

PARASOCIAL INTERACTION

Successful podcast producers have knowledge or experience about a given topic as well as the passion to talk about it. You can hear it in podcasts that tell stories, podcasts that explore real-life issues, and of course in those podcasts that discuss ideas and opinions. In fact, most podcast producers and hosts end up creating an intimate bond with their listeners through a shared interest in a specific topic or life experience.

In media terms, this bond is called parasocial interaction and can be experienced when we get totally absorbed in the audio experience: We feel that we’re best friends with the people chatting, or we identify 100 % with the main character in the story. This immersion has everything to do with our personal interest in the topic covered in the podcast. It’s triggered by the way many hosts or journalists address us listeners directly, so language plays a key role here, too. Obviously, it is also enhanced through our use of earbuds, and the fact that we get to choose when and where to listen.

The parasocial interaction even continues after we’ve listened to the podcast. We’re often invited to share our thoughts and reactions with other listeners on social media, creating an online community around the podcast. This enhances all of the above, and our correspondence with other fans boosts our listening experience. And because of the parasocial interaction, many podcast producers can present more complex stories, nerdier conversations, and longer-running debates than we find in radio programmes.

THE ANALYTICAL METHOD

Of course, the direct communication between producer and listener is reflected in the podcast itself. In fact, it is the number-one focus of our analysis: By examining the way a podcast tells a story or presents an idea, we can learn a lot about the producer of the podcast and their intentions, as well as the listener and their reactions. This method can be applied to a wide range of media, but when it comes to podcasts, we’re specifically interested in the voices, music, sounds, and editing. That’s the primary focus of our podcast analysis.

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PODCAST FORMATS The best way to start a podcast analysis is to consider the what and how: What does the podcast actually sound like? What sounds, music, and voices do you hear, and what’s the audio quality like? This naturally leads to questions about how the podcast has been produced: Is there a lot of money, professional people, and good production values involved? Or does the setup sound simpler and more easy-going? What we’re actually focusing on is the format of the podcast.

The American podcast producer Eric Nuzum divides all podcasts into two formats: Podcasts with people chatting and podcasts with people telling stories. Being able to distinguish between these two is an important first step in our analysis, so let’s start with examining them a little further.

Podcasts have multiple ways to engage the listeners and make us feel like we’re a part of the show. It all depends on the format of the podcast – whether it tells a story or involves people chatting.

Listen to the two trailers and decide what format they each belong to.

Furthermore, comment on how they try to engage us in different ways with voices, music, and other sounds. In other words: How do they establish a para­social connection with the listeners?

• Introducing No Stupid Questions (USA) (No Stupid Questions trailer) Running time: 2:16 minutes.

Produced by Freakanomics Radio Network, 2020.

• Trailer: Season 1 – Look Out For Each Other (USA) (Blackout trailer) Running time: 2:20 minutes.

Produced by QCODE, 2019.

LISTEN

CAPTURING THE LISTENERS

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LISTEN ALONG WHILE READING In this introduction to analysing podcasts, we refer to three podcasts as examples. They will make it easier to understand the podcast terms and analy­sis method. The three podcasts revolve around the theme of HOME and what happens to people when their sense of ‘home’ is turned upside down.

Yet, the podcasts also deal with other subjects and could easily fit into themes like FAMILY, or TERROR, etc.

Blackout (USA) ep. 1 “Pilot” Running time: 22 minutes.

Produced by QCode, 2019.

Transcripts available on the ­QCodemedia website.

We follow an American radio DJ one morning when his hometown is struck by a major power blackout, isolating the little community and the people in it. We experience everything at close hand, feeling the mystery creeping up on us. Already in this first episode, the concepts of ‘home’ and ‘feeling at home’ change dramatically due to harmful outside forces.

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File on 4 (UK) “My Homeless Son” Running time: 37 minutes.

Produced by BBC Radio 4, 2018.

Transcripts available on the File on 4 website.

File on 4 covers current affairs in Britain and abroad, and this episode focuses on how social services and others turned their back on a homeless teenage boy in London, leading to both physical and mental trauma. Through interviews, it builds a case to show that social authorities have a responsibility to create a ‘home’ for children.

The Battersea Poltergeist (UK) Ep. 1 “63 Wycliffe Road” Running time: 31 minutes.

Produced by Bafflegab, 2021.

A reporter investigates one of England’s most infamous hauntings – a poltergeist which terrified a London family in the 1950s. Through a mix of interviews and re-enactments of real-life scenes, we experience both the investigation and the supernatural events first hand.

PODCASTS WITH PEOPLE CHATTING

Without a doubt this is the most widespread podcast format because it’s easy and cheap to produce for professionals and amateurs alike.

Except for a sporadic use of theme music, the number-one ingredient is the human voice. This is how the producer, the host, and other partici­ pants present their personal experiences, reactions, opinions, ideas, or thoughts – the content in most podcasts with people chatting.

Even though people can talk about literally anything – from their own everyday life experiences to much more specialist topics – all podcasts with people chatting are grounded in reality and therefore non­ fiction.

You can divide these podcasts into three distinct sub-formats based on how many people are chatting and how formal it sounds:

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The MONOLOGUE is easy to recognize because there’s only one person talking – usually presenting either a topic or an idea to the listeners.

The monologue can be scripted if, for example, the content is complex or relies on a strict structure or argumentation. It can also be adlibbed which makes it less formal and looser and more personal.

The CONVERSATION and the INTERVIEW have two or more people talking together. In a conversation, the two participants are of equal importance – they share their experiences, ideas, opinions, or help each other build the overall argumentation. It usually creates a cosy and friendly atmosphere and invites us listeners into the conversation. Contrary to this, the participants in an interview are not of equal importance: An interview is a more formal conversation where the participants have specific roles. This also helps create a form of structure in the podcast: Person no. 1 asks questions, and person no. 2, the interviewee, answers them. Natu­rally, all our focus is directed towards the interviewee, and their experiences, ideas, opinions, etc.

The PANEL DISCUSSION consists of several people talking. Normally, there’s a host who has invited a number of people to participate, sharing their different experiences, ideas, opinions, etc. These differing points of view build into a discussion, which can be more or less formal – it depends on how strictly the host structures the discussion. It also depends on what the primary purpose of the podcast is: The topic discussed, or the friendly banter and jokes among the panellists, or a bit of both.

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In the podcast No Stupid Questions, psychologist Angela Duckworth (left) and author Stephen Dubner ask each other seemingly simple questions like “Why do we complain?” and “What’s so gratifying about gossip?” During their conversation, they dive into the topic by presenting and sharing psychological and sociological research with each other. The purpose is to enlighten the listeners on the inner workings of people and society.

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Podcasts with people chatting can easily span several sub-formats in one episode. It’s quite common that monologues are mixed with conversations, or separate interviews slip into a panel discussion. In fact, mapping out the various sub-formats at play is an important first step in your analysis.

Furthermore, since the audio design in podcasts with people chatting is not all that intricate, it’s a good idea to explore these podcasts through an argumentation analysis focusing on structure, rhetorical devices, etc. However, since the voice work is front and centre, we need to pay much more attention to the language: How do the participants speak about the subject? How do they express their ideas and thoughts?

This leads us to discuss the purpose of the podcast: Are the producers merely entertaining us – or are they sharing ideas with us, teaching us something, or trying to convince us about something?

PODCASTS WITH PEOPLE TELLING STORIES

Podcasts can also tell stories through a sophisticated audio design, making use of various voices, sound effects, and music, intricately edited together. The producers focus on telling a captivating story to the listeners: They grip us emotionally, and we identify with the main characters who go through some sort of development, be it physical or psychological. Podcasts with people telling stories use the same narrative techniques that we know from films and TV series – e.g. plot points and suspense. To a certain extent, the audio design makes it sound like we’re watching a film with our eyes closed, putting us right into a dramatic scene and making us experience the events at first-hand.

As in other media, stories in podcasts can be both authentic and made-up. For clarity, we’ll explore both, one at a time:

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PODCAST DOCUMENTARIES are non-fiction. They’re grounded in reality, authentic people and events. They tell stories through speaks, delivered by the reporter or host, and unscripted interviews with the people involved. To underline their authenticity, many podcast documentaries also make use of segments that seem to be unedited or have been recorded live. Also, real-life sounds and music that were captured on location during a recording session make a documentary seem more authentic.

However, in order to make the story gripping, podcast documentaries also implement suspense, and sounds and music that trigger an emotional response in the listeners. That’s why many podcast documentaries are structured with the reporter as a first-person narrator, investigating the case and discovering new important facts along the way. This makes the real-life events much more personal: We feel like we are part of the investigation ourselves, primarily identifying with the reporter.

However, a podcast documentary can also be shaped like a traditional news story presenting the facts and the people involved. Here, the reporter is a more authoritative third-person narrator making us focus on and empathise with the real-life participants and their problems.

Although podcast documentaries usually trigger the listeners’ emotions and pull us into the authentic drama, most of them have more important purposes: First and foremost, to make us more conscious about the world and the people in it, creating awareness or joining an ongoing debate about issues in our society – violence, #metoo, climate change, etc. Other documentaries simply present facts – historical, scientific, etc.

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File on 4’s episode “My Homeless Son” is a good example of a podcast documentary.

Podcast dramas are usually works of fiction with plots structured around conflict models and scenes revolving around characters who go through personal developments – both physical and psychological. Usually, a drama is carefully prepared as a script with lines of dialogue which are then recorded in a studio by voice actors. A sound engineer then adds background noises, music, etc. and even changes the audio quality by implementing various filters and effects. In other words, the editing is of utmost importance in a podcast drama.

Podcast dramas make us identify and empathise with the main character’s trials and tribulations. Many do so through internal monologues, where we listen to the character’s thoughts and ruminations. A more subtle way to bring us into the mind of the main character is by using subjective sounds and filters added to the audio design: Certain sounds can be edited to stand out, others may come off as somewhat distorted or even muted, because that’s the way the main character experiences them.

Most podcast dramas do have deeper messages and want to teach the listeners something about what it means to be human. However, the no. 1 purpose of a podcast drama is to trigger us emotionally, making us react to the personal drama, suspense, horror, or comedy.

Blackout is a good example of a serialised podcast drama.

Fill out the worksheet online with notes on each of the five sub-formats. WWW This overview with your own short definitions will come in handy once you get started with the podcast analyses.

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OVERVIEW

ALL THE FORMATS

LISTEN

TRACING THE FORMATS Distinguishing between the different formats and considering what each brings to a podcast is an important first step in our analysis. Let’s try it out with the introduction to The Battersea Poltergeist ep. 1.

On your own, listen to the first 4:25 minutes and pinpoint what formats are at play.

Team up in groups of three and compare notes on the formats you’ve heard. Substantiate your findings by referring to the use of voices, music, and sounds.

Finally, in class, discuss what each format brings to our listening experience and what would happen if the producers had simply just stuck with one format.

In The Battersea Poltergeist the listeners are taken back to the 1950s-60s to experience the supernatural encounters first-hand. British actor Toby Jones (top) plays the real-life paranormal investigator Harold Chibbett (bottom) in the re-enactments.

PODCASTS ARE NEARLY ALWAYS MASHUPS

As we’ve already hinted, these format definitions are primarily theoretical – podcasts tend to be mashups of several formats: A formal interview can easily slip into a personal conversation – a monologue can present ideas through storytelling. Many documentaries let us explore a reallife mystery together with the reporter, underlining the suspense and surprises along the way. And likewise, many podcast dramas use various authentic recordings, news clips, archive footage, etc. to give the story a real-life edge.

In this way, the various formats may be mixed to create complex and compelling listening experiences.

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THE PODCAST HEXAGRAM AND OTHER TOOLS originate from stamme fra delve into dykke ned i

The most important elements in our podcast analysis are the characters or individuals that participate – and this goes for both podcasts with people telling stories and people chatting. In documentaries and dramas, the composition and structure are clearly connected to the personal development of the characters or individuals. However, the same goes for conversations and discussions about ideas and opinions – they, too, originate from the people talking about them. Therefore, it’s usually a good idea to explore these elements together – the characters or people involved and the composition of the podcast.

Since so many podcasts delve into authentic situations or present the voices of real people, the number-one tool for analysing them is the podcast hexagram. It’s a revised version of the so-called rhetorical pentagram, which you probably already know. The podcast hexagram can help us to thoroughly explore the communication in podcasts:

WRITE

WHAT DOES YOUR LIFE SOUND LIKE? Imagine you are the main character in a podcast documentary based on your own life – be it real or imagined. Make a quick character sketch of yourself based on the following questions: First of all, what is an important goal in your life right now?

• Who is helping you achieve this goal?

Who is preventing you from reaching it?

• Do you have any strengths or weaknesses that might help or hinder you, too?

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And secondly: What does it sound like?

• What voices, music, and sounds would you need to help your listeners to understand your goal and the conflict that you have to go through to achieve it?

• What do your personal strengths and weaknesses sound like?

Afterwards, team up with another student, and present your character sketches and audio design to each other.

Ask questions, give feedback and suggestions to improve on the character sketches and choice of sounds – make sure the inherent conflict sparkles.