Podcasting Too
The internet is great for doing quite a few things. It’s very good for social media, where
you can like pictures of kittens, or retweet angry and ill-informed comments
originating from GRU bots, for fun.
It allows you to order your shopping to get delivered to you, or to
research stuff like string theory or episode summaries of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer.
Best of all, it allows you to reach out and share your
opinions with others, secure in the knowledge that your views are important and
will be embraced and appreciated by others, especially if you turn comments to
‘off’ so you never have to read any negative criticism, or indeed any criticism
at all, of your forthright views about the casting of a woman as a female
Doctor Who, or your controversial views about race and intelligence.
On the up side, for every bigot there are hundreds of
passionate and positive people who want to share their knowledge, or even just
their experience, about something dear to them. Or just want to try to entertain. And for each of these people who knock out a podcast, there
are many more who engage in a positive way.
Podcasting is something special. Technology has developed smartphones that mean we can
download podcasts and take them with us, meaning that we can listen to podcasts
at home, or on the move.
But the really special thing about podcasts is that the
podcasts created by enthusiasts are better than the podcasts produced by
professional broadcasters.
This doesn’t happen anywhere else. A blog is very unlikely to be as good as, say, a novel or a
published collection of essays from the ‘New Yorker’, because a blogger is
unlikely to have the resources available to a remunerated writer, like an
editor. There are exceptions but
the dross to quality ratio is high.
Likewise vlogs. These only
really succeed where they cover niche subjects and have a charismatic host.
Bringing us to podcasting.
The beauty of a podcast is that it can be high concept with
a low budget, and a real labour of love.
Do you like Jane Austen? So
do I. Do I want to hear you talk
about Jane Austen for two hours?
Probably not, but I bet you can talk about her life, her literature,
adaptations and legacy in fifteen minute chunks for a few episodes? How about getting your friends
involved? How about asking
listeners to contribute. Holy
shit, as Jane Austen never wrote, ‘Talkin’ Bonnets’ is number five in the
podcast download charts.
The enthusiast is able to outperform the professional
broadcaster for the very same reasons the blogger cannot. They don’t have an editor and they
don’t have to worry about producing to deadline to get paid. They can craft a labour of love. They can also interact with their
community.
I love a literary podcast, two presenters knocking views
about their favourite stories back and forth, it’s almost what the media was
invented for. Because while there
is nothing quite like a single voice speaking directly to you, eavesdropping on
a conversation is tremendous fun too.
They also provide the perfect platform for original drama. Anyone with a bit of writing talent and
some actor friends who are keen to perform, and are there any other kind of
actor friends? can create an episodic drama that builds and audience and a
reputation. This is the stuff that
would never have been produced by a broadcaster with a finite amount of
airtime.
And of course there are the documentary podcasters.
While genre fiction may have found a more mainstream
audience thanks to the Game of Thrones TV series and the MCU, podcasts are, to
an extent, the fanzines of the twenty first century, produced with love by
people who care about the subject for an audience who are consuming this stuff
because they have a passion for it and, rather pleasingly, come to it by way of
subscription, just like back in the day.
Maybe somebody should make a documentary podcast about
fanzines. Most likely, somebody
already has. So what about a drama
about a fanzine, a fanzine about Jane Austen. Now that, I’d subscribe to.
Labels: Genre literature, Internet, Literature, Podcast, Podcasting, Podcasts, Radio, TV
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