Beginners guide to podcasting
Using the latest tools so that we can focus on the content not the tech
A brief intro, followed by links to a series of articles that give you all of the instructions you need to start podcasting.
We want to encourage more students and academics to podcast in the Arts Faculty at the University of Warwick. I have been podcasting for about six months now, and have found that the benefits go much further than simply communicating to a wider audience.
Why podcast?
Because you enjoy talking about your favourite topic (whatever that is, someone else will be interested).
Because mainstream media isn’t covering things that matter.
To reach new people, locally and globally, to get them interested.
As a medium for investigation and research.
To develop a community.
To push yourself to understand difficult topics.
To develop your own dialogical and technical skills.
Speaking to other podcasters (Luke Robert Mason, Shuangshuang Cai, and the Theoryish crew) there was consensus on how the dialogues we have when podcasting expand our own understanding, as well as that of our guests and audience. We have even created new ideas. Podcasting is an essential part of research culture today. We are even seeing it becoming, for some, a core part of their research lives. Paola and Hannah from Theoryish have used it to push well beyond the boundaries of their PhDs. Jim Judges of The Character of Comedy interviews comedians to help with his PhD on comedy.
What to podcast?
Whatever gets you, your colleagues, your friends, your neighbours, any kind of audience that matters to you, no matter how small, talking and listening.
Treat it as an opportunity to develop. Your ideas, your voice, your ability to converse.
Podcasting is a relatively informal medium. There’s no reason to be formal. I don’t plan too much when I make my podcasts. I just find that getting interesting enthusiastic people together and giving them time generated interesting content. I have consciously made an effort to improve my dialogical skills, to listen back and select my phrases better. As an interviewer, I have learned to give the interviewee much more airtime, fewer interruptions. I have also learned to be the proxy to the audiences interests and, sometimes, relative ignorance - it’s OK to say “what does that mean” and “explain that in lay person terms” - clarification helps everyone.
Most importantly, enjoy it.
Why is podcasting taking off again?
You would have to be living under a rock not to have noticed the explosion in podcasting over the last few years. Mainstream broadcasters have moved in. Famous people from all sectors have realised it is a good alternative way to reach an audience, unmediated by producers and media execs. But there’s something else going on. Podcasting has become just so easy.
We have of course, as often is the case, been here before. Back in 2007 Apple created their now defunct iTunesU (University) platform, and at Warwick we put a big effort into encouraging staff and students to produce podcasts. We had some significant success (David Morley’s poetry podcasts were especially memorable). But the tech was still in its infancy. Producing podcasts was clunky. Studios were expensive and complicated (still are). Mobile MP3 recorders produced low quality recordings.
Since then there has been a revolution. I can now record high quality audio on location, or record with people online anywhere in the world, using cheap (£60) mic kits. I then edit using Adobe Podcast Studio, in which the audio is seamlessly changed by editing the text of the transcript. And then improve the sound quality at the flick of an AI switch.
We’ve had great fun with this, have learned a lot, created a small community of podcasters, and are establishing a new culture. Recording with curators, academics, and students on location for Museum Explorations has been especially good.
We need more people to do this, so I have been teaching workshops for beginners, and have documented my simple approach in a series of articles, in the order I suggest you use them:
Tell us what you are doing
If you are a member of the Arts Faculty, and have a podcast show, or are starting one, please tell us. The next step is for us to create a directory, so that we can all find great podcasts from the Faculty to listen to, and to inspire each other.