Media Art Essay

T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
PHOTO FROM SOUNDTRAP ON UNSPLASH
Facilitators Handbook for:
DEVELOPED BY:
PAULA GARDNER AND STEPHEN
SURLIN
How to Make a Podcast:
Technical, Directing &
Recording Tips
WITH FEEDBACK AND
PARTICIPATION FROM AWO
ABOKOR, ASHA-KEYF DAHIR
ABDI, WENDY DE SOUZA,
DANIKA FERGUSON, SHOCHOY
FRAY, LINDA FREMPONG, LOOCRESHA GONSALVES DOYLE,
SAKINAH HASIB, KWAKU
NYANOR TSION NICODEMUS,
BRITTNEY MILLER, MARIA BELEN
ORDONEZ, AND SUZANNE STEIN.
TIME
2 hours 45 minutes (3.5 hours if you add
check-in and group agreement) provides
lessons in creating a podcast from beginning to end.
DESCRIPTION
2-3.5
HRS
90
This two-hour workshop invites participants to create a
short podcast or podcast series. It can be used with the
“Express Yourself – Decoding and Talking Back to Media”
module in this book, to share an idea, response, or call to
action made by your small group or yourself. The module
is designed to help you to create a podcast with minimal
equipment (e.g. just a cellphone).
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P H OTO B Y K AT E O S E E N O N U N S P L A S H
T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
GOALS
1. To learn how to plan and organize a
podcast
2. To learn how to record a podcast (on
your cellphone) and share it on social
media and podcast directories
3. To be able to apply your decoding
skills (learned in the “Express Yourself
– Decoding and Talking Back to Media”
module) to create your personal
message to talk back to media
M AT E R I A L S
1. Large, visible writing space (e.g. large
sheets of paper and tape, whiteboard,
or chalkboard) and markers or chalk
2. Index cards (small and large) or scrap
paper (11”x15” pieces if possible)
3. Pens or pencils
4. Smart mobile phone (participants can
work in groups and share one phone!)
5. Connection to the Internet to
download free podcast software
6. Anchor – free podcast software
available on the Apple App Store and
Google Play
R O O M P R E PA R AT I O N
Set up the writing space so that it is visible
to all participants when you demonstrate
writing a story board and/or a script.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR
FA C I L I TAT O R S
This workshop is recommended as a follow-up to the “Express Yourself – Decoding
and Talking Back to Media” module, where
participants will have learned how to make an
informed critique of media.
To prepare for this workshop, make sure
you have read through the material.
Be sure you have downloaded the free
Anchor app (on the Apple App Store or Google Play) and watched the 22 minute video
from Pod Sound School “How to start a podcast on your phone.” (https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=LnQiCVW7YCQ.) We recommend you create a test podcast, so that you
are comfortable with the app features. Note
that the app used to make the podcast requires access to the Internet. You might want
to make a sample short 1 minute podcast
yourself so that you can show the group how
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T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
easy it is to make a podcast on a smartphone,
and how great it can sound.
This workshop contains a lot of information
about how to make a podcast. Rather than
read it to all participants yourself, students
can take turns reading the information in each
section, and you can lead a discussion to be
sure everyone understands the information.
You can use large paper sheets to demonstrate the scripting sections to the whole
group and distribute paper to teams for their
group scripting work.
Work with the participants to create teams.
You can do this by brainstorming ideas for
the podcast topic and then sorting participants into groups with similar interests. Even
if participants want to record a solo podcast,
they can work in teams to support the scripting and recording. After teams are sorted, you
can lead a brief review of each section (format and goals, consent and privacy) and then
invite students to work in teams to answer
them. Participants will remain in their production teams for the remainder of the workshop.
Be sure to remind participants to take notes
at each stage, as this will become their script.
or evidence. This workshop builds on those
skills and lets you express your ideas about
different media. It takes you through the steps
of coming up with an idea for a podcast, writing a script and recording it and even distributing it online, if you wish. Let’s get started!
COMING UP WITH A PODCAST IDEA:
(15-20 MIN)
Think about the questions below to help
you come up with an idea and format for your
podcast.
P O D C A S T T H E M E , F O R M AT A N D G O A L S :
Think about your goals for the podcast and
your intended audience. In your teams, work
together to answer the following questions.
•
•
•
•
•
WORKSHOP AGENDA
Hi! In this workshop, we will make a podcast alone or with others in the workshop.
Many of you have already participated in the
“Express Yourself – Decoding and Talking
Back to Media” workshop where you learned
to think critically about media—like an advertisement, TV show, or music video — and
how to critique it, using a strong argument
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•
Is this a single podcast or one in a
planned series?
What is the theme or topic you want to
discuss in your podcast?
What is the audience for your
podcast—who do you want to reach?
Do you want to make your own
podcast or make one with 1-2 other
people?
What will be the length of the
podcast? 2 minutes: a brief message,
response to a current event or
advertisement or music video. 3-5
minutes: a dialogue or debate about a
piece of media or news item
How many people will speak on the
podcast? (We recommend recording
with only 1 or 2 participants, as in
larger groups it may be difficult to hear
all speakers and speakers may overlap
more often.)
T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
•
Find a location to record. Keep in mind
that the best place to record is in a
quiet room with a door. A closet is a
great place to record if you can’t find
another quiet space.
C O N S E N T A N D P R I VAC Y I S S U E S :
Now that you have teams and a podcast
theme, format and goals, let’s review the
consent and privacy issues and then you can
discuss them in your small group.
DISCUSS THESE QUESTIONS AS A
GROUP
•
•
How would speakers like to introduce
themselves on the podcast? (For
example, name, other details such as
where they attend school, a special
interest they have relevant to the
podcast, etc.) Be sure to discuss the
amount of personal material you wish
to share, recognizing that podcasts
can be easily shared and widely
disseminated. Do you want to use your
real name or a name you create for the
podcast?
Discuss your plans to disseminate the
podcast. Will it be posted on YouTube
or Vimeo, shared on social media, etc.?
W H AT ’ S T H E P L A N – T H E S TO R Y
RULES! (10 MIN)
(10 minutes, reading and reviewing the
plan together or in small groups)
In this section, we are going to review the
plans for making the podcast.
N O T E T O FA C I L I TAT O R S
Keep students in their production teams
for the remainder of the workshop. Review
the following areas either by reading them
or inviting students to read the sections to
the rest of the group. Note that technical
information regarding recording a podcast
on Anchor will be provided below, in the
section “Tools to Make your Podcast”.
THE STORY RULES!
We are all probably new to making a podcast. You can make a great podcast just using
your smartphone. Directors know that the
story is more important than the technical
features, so focus on storytelling and you can
make a great podcast! The most important
thing is to find your voice, craft your message
and record and deliver it for others to hear!
We will work on that shortly, in the script section.
W H AT ’ S T H E P L A N ?
We are going to use a free app to make a
podcast, and if you like, to make a nice title
or logo for your podcast! The app is super
easy to use, and we will help each other – so
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no need to worry if you don’t have any experience.
WRITING THE SCRIPT
(30 MIN)
We recommend you use free podcast
software called Anchor that does not require
editing. The easy to use software allows you
to add music (provided on the app), to trim
the beginning and end and to upload it and
distribute it to podcast directories. Anchor is
available on the Apple App Store and Google
Play.
N O T E T O FA C I L I TAT O R S
Briefly introduce the script exercise, inviting teams to read through the script
material and sample script, and then get to
work on the script as a group. Participants
can use regular paper to write out the
script. Invite participants to change up the
script as they like – there is no “right” way
to write a script! You can roam around the
room, visiting teams to support them, as
they need. Remind students that for podcasts featuring one speaker only, they can
shorten the content part of the script to one
or two ideas.
We are going to learn tips to record your
podcast live, so it doesn’t need editing. Don’t
worry if it’s not perfect, as long as the audio
quality is good enough and the message is
clear and engaging.
You can use free design software called
Canva. This easy to use software allows you
to make a logo and add a photo of yourself
to your podcast, to help you to promote it.
Canva is available on app stores.
PODCAST SCRIPT GUIDELINES AND
SAMPLE:
Below is a sample script, which you can
use or change to suit your podcast.
More information on how to use these
apps is to follow.
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Decide on a title for your podcast or podcast series. Aim for a title that is interesting
and conveys the content of your podcast.
Each podcast episode needs to be searchable; if you use an abstract title, add a semi
colon to add a description that is searchable.
INTRODUCTION:
ON UNSPLASH
PHOTO BY GLENN CARSTENS-PETERS
PODCAST TITLE:
Including:
• Greeting, which includes the name of
the series and this episode’s topic.
• Introduce host(s) and/or participants.
T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
P O D C A S T M A I N C O N T E N T:
Here you will script out what you plan to
say (see below). For podcasts featuring one
speaker only, you can shorten the content
part of the script to one or two ideas.
SIGNING OFF:
TA G L I N E ( O P T I O N A L ) :
This will give a tone or vibe to the podcast.
• For example, “Kicking back at Jane and
Finch, it’s time for our podcast: ‘What
your teacher doesn’t know but should.’
You are hanging with (podcast host
names).”
LO C AT I O N O F T H E P O D C A S T:
Here you can thank listeners and the production crew, and remind listeners of the
name of your podcast and where to find it
(e.g. on your social media feed, YouTube, etc.)
• For example, “That’s all for today.
Thanks for listening. Thanks to Sharma
for recording support. Remember to
like us and share this pod. Look for our
next pod in this series– we drop them
weekly, on YouTube. Bye for now!”
Here you note your location; you can include a land acknowledgment, commonly
used in Canada to recognize that we live and
work on traditional territories of Indigenous
peoples and are responsible to collaborate in
the care of our shared spaces and land.
SET UP:
This is optional, and introduces the listener
to the general theme of your podcast. Here
you want to explain the podcast format – interviewing, dialogue, panel discussion.
• For example, “If you are new to our
series, xx, on this pod xx and I chat
about…”
A LEAD IN:
Use it to start the podcast to lead into the
show’s theme and capture the listener.
• For example, “JJ and I were listening to
the new tune dropped by xx and
realized…”
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VI. SAMPLE PODCAST SCRIPT OUTLINE
TA G L I N E ( O P T I O N A L ) A N D I N T R O D U C T I O N S :
EXAMPLES
LO C AT I O N O F T H E P O D C A S T:
EXAMPLES
SET UP:
EXAMPLES
PODCAST EPISODE SEGMENTS/TOPICS:
EXAMPLES
We suggest you segment the podcast
with 3 or 4 themes or questions. You
don’t need to name these segments, just
flow through them.
OPENING PODCAST TOPIC:
EXAMPLES
Agree to someone starting, for example:
Awo: “So this is Awo and I’m going to
start us out with a general question….
Prat, what would you say about xxx.”
Prat: “Thanks for that Awo, I’ve been
thinking about this a lot lately since….”
Belen: “I’m really glad you mentioned
that because…”
VI. SAMPLE PODCAST SCRIPT OUTLINE
PODCAST TOPIC 2:
EXAMPLES
Agree to someone starting, for example:
Awo: “So this is Awo and I’m going to
start us out with a general question….
Prat, what would you say about xxx.”
PODCAST TOPIC 3:
EXAMPLES
Agree to someone starting, for example:
Awo: “So this is Awo and I’m going to
start us out with a general question….
Prat, what would you say about xxx.”
FINAL PODCAST TOPIC:
EXAMPLES
For your final topic, choose a good closing question or thought. You may want
to talk about the stakes of a problem,
what’s been achieved or lost recently,
and/or an imagined better future.
SIGNING OFF:
EXAMPLES
“Well, I really found that to be a great
conversation about…”
“I want to thank my podcast partner, xx,
and thank the listening audience. Remember that there are more podcasts
available on (podcast distributor site).
Feel free to like or share our pods. Until
next time, we are xx and xx signing off!”
T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
PREPARING TO RECORD AND DOING A
T E S T R U N W I T H YO U R S C R I P T:
(30 MIN)
In this section, we will learn simple tips that
will make your podcast sound great! Take
some time to read these with your group and
practice using them as you run through your
script in practice sessions before your record.
N O T E T O FA C I L I TAT O R S
Review the following tips in the whole
group or small groups. You can roam
around the room to support students as
they study these tips and try them out, as
they practice their scripts out loud.
PRACTICE:
We are going to practice reading the podcast script before we record. Practice the tips
below to get the best sound and recording
that you can.
If you are a single person recording, you
can just practice the script before you record, and follow best practices recording
tips. If you are recording in a group, there are
tips below for how to move the conversation
around the group.
RECORDING TIPS:
QUIET ROOM:
Record in a quiet room, with the door
closed if possible. Ask anyone else in the
space to maintain quiet while you are record98
ing. If you are in a noisy house, you can record in a closet to keep out excess noise.
T E S T F I R S T:
Test out recording on your phone (or using
the software) before you record, to find the
best distance from your mouth to capture
good sound, keep out excess noise and avoid
voice effects that are distracting (like excess
“s” sounds or lip smacking sounds). Do this by
recording and then listening to your recording until you find the best technique for each
person recording. Pro tip: Be sure to complete
your words before you pause. When you restart give the tape a second to roll to be sure
your first word isn’t cut off.
PRACTICE:
Try to get a good recording. Note that in
the Anchor podcast software, you can “trim”
the beginning and end of the podcast.
RECORD SHORT SEGMENTS:
Using the Anchor app. The anchor app
allows you to record short segments and
then automatically blends them into one
podcast piece, so you can use that feature to
record your podcast in segments instead of
all at once.
P R E PA R I N G TO R ECO R D YO U R
P O D C A S T:
Recording in a group can be challenging
because you want to avoid talking over each
other and you want to maintain the flow and
timing of the conversation. Try out these tips
to help you out! There are also tips for sounding great, whether you are a solo podcaster
or a group!
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T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
PODCAST RECORDING INSTRUCTIONS
AND TIPS:
P R E PA R AT I O N :
•
•
•
•
Use index cards or paper to list the
questions you will address and bullet
points that each speaker anticipates
discussing.
Leave your notes off the table as
shifting paper will make unwanted
noise on the recording.
You might want to place the index
cards in the middle of the table (and
not touch them) so that all participants
follow along; you can also point to
items on the card to silently cue
participants to move on to a new point
or question.
Preplan who will introduce each
subject and who will respond first. If
you want more structure, you can plan
all speaking turns before your record. If
you are comfortable, however, you can
let the conversation flow naturally.
•
GROUP SIGNALS:
•
•
Create hand signals for your team to
use during the recording; these can
include suggestions to finish one’s
thought, needs to pause, suggestions
to transition to another speaker,
suggestions to move on to a new
question, etc.
You can use each other’s names to
keep the conversation moving. Using
names also helps listeners to follow
which participant is speaking.
DIALOGUE SPIRIT AND FLOW:
•
Try to encourage the spirit and feel of
the cast. Feel free to talk casually and
•
with familiarity toward each other.
Flow: Try to keep track of time and
keep the dialogue to your planned
time. You may want to give someone
the job of keeping track of time; use
hand signals to gently signal to a
speaker that they will want to wrap
a thought or think about volleying to
another speaker.
Keep in mind the imagined audience
of your podcast and tell stories and
use examples that speak to that
audience.
RESPOND AND VOLLEY:
•
Respond to and volley speaking
opportunities to each other. For
example: Shequita: ”…that reminds of
xx, Asha, I know you have had that
experience with…. Do you want to
comment on…“ Asha: “Yes, thanks,
Shequita. It’s really important to
remember that…”
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W E A R YO U R E M OT I O N S :
Try to smile (or frown, or otherwise display
emotion on your face) when you talk; it animates your voice and helps your audience to
pick up on the tone you are trying to convey.
TA R G E T YO U R C O M M E N T S TO YO U R
AUDIENCE:
Our audience for this book is individuals
interested in critical digital literacy, gender-based violence, community-based educational organizations, and the problems and
opportunities of university-community-participant collaborations. Think about them and
their interests and needs when providing
comments.
compelling to listeners, especially
in podcast formats where there are
no visuals to add layers of interest or
context. Try to tell vivid and specific
stories.
D I F F E R E N T WAY S T O P O S I T I O N
YO U R S E L F:
At various times, you may choose to speak
wearing a different hat. For example, you may
speak as:
• Content Expert: Feel free to speak
from that position as a student, student
leader, mentor, media maker, or
observer of culture or media, who has
an informed opinion.
• “We” voice: This includes members of
a student group, community
organization, school, or a consumer of
media, food, objects, etc. As a member
of a community, you might want to
speak from the position of someone
who has listened to community
member opinions and can relay how
a community feels or responds to a
particular situation or event.
• “Me” voice: You have subjective
experiences as a person walking
through the world performing different
roles. Personal stories are extremely
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DIALOGUE WITH EACH OTHER:
•
•
•
•
Engage in this as a dialogue among
your group, rather than as separate
interventions.
Be conversational: Slip into the
conversation as appropriate (and
polite) the way you would in
conversations with friends.
Look at each other when you dialogue,
and not at the mic or the producer/
director.
Use sounds like “um hm” to respond to
each other’s comments as you wish, or
laugh, groan, whatever… to show you
are discussing with and listening to
each other.
B E S H O R T A N D S W E E T:
Keep comments focused and tight. Try to
keep comments to 30 secs or less to keep
the dialogue momentum.
T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
NAME EACH OTHER:
C R E AT E S O U N D B I T E S :
Say each other’s names during the dialogue so that listeners can follow who is
speaking.
Aim to make focused, clear and brief
“soundbites,” or complete thoughts and
statements that convey clear information
concisely.
• Take a few moments to think before
you answer; if you like, jot down notes
to reference when you respond.
• Don’t aim to have perfect English;
focus on trying to communicate
clearly.
• Feel free to correct/clarify what you’re
saying or to ask each other to do that;
those kinds of exchanges feel familiar
to us and are compelling to hear.
• If you feel you have rambled and could
make your point more succinct: pause
and restart recording.
RECOGNIZE LISTENERS:
You can recognize and speak directly to
your listeners to relay information (“see our
website Efect.ca for more info, curriculum,
podcasts, etc.”) or to show you know who
they are and why they are listening.
PAUSE:
Whenever you like. Relax and pause before you answer and between questions.
This keeps you focused and calm and makes
room on the tape for the sound editor to cut.
You can take a break whenever you want or
need to, like if you need to cough, or to focus.
P H OTO B Y K AT E O S E E N O N U N S P L A S H
NIX UMS:
Try these tricks for not starting your sentence with “Um”, start your sentences with
words like:
• “That (makes me think;) I’d (say…)
• “Sometimes/Often…(we find that…)
• “It’s (commonly believed that…)
• “Well,”…(it seems to me that)
• “Now…since we understand that…”
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T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
HOW TO RECORD A
P O D CAST O N YO U R
PHONE
N O T E T O FA C I L I TAT O R S
Review the following tips in the whole
group or small groups.
You can recommend that participants
test out the app before they attend the
workshop so that they are familiar with it.
The app is very easy to use but does require an internet connection.
Ask students to watch the 20 minute video by Pod Sound School to learn how to
use the app. Video is at this url (https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnQiCVW7YCQ) If there is time, participants can practice making a test podcast with the app.
USING ANCHOR, A FREE APP TO MAKE
YO U R P O D C A S T:
We are going to use a free, easy to use
podcast app, Anchor (produced by Spotify).
It has options to share or not share, so if you
or your group do not wish to share, you don’t
have to. If you want and we have time in the
session, you can also use the free app Canva
to add a title, logo and photo to your podcast.
You will use Anchor to record, trim, add
background music, and publish your podcast.
You can share your podcast on social media
and in podcast directories. Anchor is available
on app stores as a free download.
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LEARNING TO RECORD ON ANCHOR:
Please watch this 20 minute video from
Pod Sound School https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=LnQiCVW7YCQ
After you watch it, start the video from the
beginning and follow along, using your script
to record the different pieces of your podcast
script: introductions, content, closing.
You can record each of these separately
on the Anchor app and it will edit them together automatically!
We suggest that you record each piece
separately, then listen to it and re-record it if
you want to.
Open source music is available on the app.
The app increases and decreases the music
volume so that doesn’t block out your voice.
If you are planning to distribute your podcast
publicly, we recommend using music from
this source, as you have permission to use
it. (Copyright law requires that you must get
permission and pay fees if you wish to use
music published by popular artists.)
T H E C R I T I C A L D I G I TA L & M E D I A L I T E R AC Y WO R K B O O K
OPTIONAL TOOLS:
These tools are entirely optional but can
be useful if you have them. If you don’t have
them, don’t worry about it – your podcast can
still sound great.
•
•
Tripod or phone table stand: You can
buy a very cheap one at a discount
store. This helps to keep the phone
equally distanced from all speakers, to
create best sound.
Pop filter: Use between your mouth
and the phone to avoid getting pop
noises. If you don’t have one, be sure
to keep your phone a few inches from
the speaker’s mouth.
PODCAST DEMOS
(15 MIN)
Okay, it’s time to share our podcasts with
the larger group! Let’s take turns playing our
podcasts.
ADDENDUM: RESOURCES
FOR FUTURE TRAINING
FREE AND EASY PODCAST LESSONS:
Check out these great, short, and easy to
follow instructional videos. This is only a selection. Pod Sound School has a lot of great
videos; see the list below or explore their
website below to find more that interest you!
Pod Sound School. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=LnQiCVW7YCQ (22.31 min)
Pod Sound School. Podcast jumpstart.
https://www.podsoundschool.com/freebies
How to (online guides and courses)
Pod Sound School. Learn how to podcast:
podcasting blog 2020. https://www.podsoundschool.com/podcasting-blog
Pod Sound School. Podcasting and Social
Media tips https://www.youtube.com/
podsoundschool
PodSound School. Online free master
class in podcasting. https://www.podcastingsmart.com
Podcast motor. How To Start A Podcast:
Your 2021 Step-By-Step Guide
https://www.podcastmotor.com/how-tocreate-the-perfect-podcast-setup
Buzzsprout. How to make a podcast (with
many free resources
https://www.buzzsprout.com/
how-to-make-a-podcast?gclid=CjwKCAjwos-HBhB3EiwAe4xM919RUgSGl85o-RipE4X1O_1Aw_enFqoRyXmHqV0StNSgqCaQ1FTtmRoCWI4QAvD_BwE
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MAKING A PODCAST USING
PROFESSIONAL RECORDING AND
E D I T I N G E Q U I P M E N T:
Making a podcast with professional equipment takes more time and resources. You do
not need to use professional equipment to
make a great podcast. If you are interested in
learning these skills, however, some tutorials
are recommended below.
Podcast Insights. How To Start A Podcast:
A Complete Step-By-Step Tutorial. [text resource] https://www.podcastinsights.com/
start-a-podcast
Podcast Insights. How To Start A Podcast:
A Complete Step-By-Step Tutorial. [podcast]
https://www.podcastinsights.com/podcast
Podcasting with Aaron. How to Set Up GarageBand (Mac) for Recording Podcasts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtB87AdSBM (8 min)
A C C E S S I B I L I T Y A S S I S TA N C E , U S I N G
CAPTIONS, AUDIO DESCRIPTIONS AND
TRANSCRIPTS:
Note that there is a transcript option on the
Anchor podcast app. If you publish your pod
as a video, you can include the transcript
Information on how and why to use accessibility features: Indiana University. Accessibility information for Podcasters
https://kb.iu.edu/d/awuz
104
Feminist Media Studies
ISSN: 1468-0777 (Print) 1471-5902 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfms20
Taking up sonic space: feminized vocality and
podcasting as resistance
Raechel Tiffe & Melody Hoffmann
To cite this article: Raechel Tiffe & Melody Hoffmann (2017) Taking up sonic space:
feminized vocality and podcasting as resistance, Feminist Media Studies, 17:1, 115-118, DOI:
10.1080/14680777.2017.1261464
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1261464
Published online: 12 Dec 2016.
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FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 
115
del Campo, Marisa A., and Thomas J. Kehle. 2016. “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)
and Frisson: Mindfully Induced Sensory Phenomena that Promote Happiness.” International Journal
of School & Educational Psychology 4 (2): 99–105. doi:10.1080/21683603.2016.1130582.
Cheadle, Harry. 2012. “ASMR, The Good Feeling No One Can Explain.” VICE. http://www.vice.com/read/
asmr-the-good-feeling-no-one-can-explain
Feld, Steven, Aaron A. Fox, Thomas Porcello, and David Samuels. 2004. “Vocal Anthropology: From the
Music of Language to the Language of Song.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, edited by
A. Duranti, 321–345. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Herndon, Holly, and Claire Tolan. 2015. “Lonely at the Top.” Platform. 4AD.
Hudelson, Joshua. 2012. “Listening to Whisperers: Performance, ASMR Community and Fetish on
YouTube.” Sounding Out! Accessed December 10, 2012. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2012/12/10/
whisper-community/
Morgan, Frances. 2012. “Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space.” The Wire. http://www.thewire.
co.uk/in-writing/themire/20909/ladies-and-gentlemen_we-are-floating-in-space
Power, Nina. 2012. “The Dystopian Technology of the Female Voice.” Her Noise Archive. Accessed August
25, 2012. http://hernoise.org/nina-power/
Richard, C. 2015. A Scientist’s View of the Term “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.” Accessed
November 28, 2016. http://asmruniversity.com/2014/08/03/scientist-view-termautonomoussensory-meridian-response/
Roberts, A. O. 2015. “Echo and the Chorus of Female Machines.” Sounding Out! Accessed March 2, 2015.
Echo and the Chorus of Female Machines
Thompson, Marie. 2016. “Feminised Noise and the ‘Dotted Line’ of Sonic Experimentalism.” Contemporary
Music Review 35 (1): 85–101. doi:10.1080/07494467.2016.1176773.
Tolan, Claire. 2015a. “Citizen Shush.” Oval Space Performance November 4, 2015. YouTube, Accessed June 3,
2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Lc2fTz4ZY&list=PLe2hNiHTzbyofgpH1bjGmkQQ7SE_
FL33n&index=1
Tolan, Claire. 2015b. “Shush Systems.” Accessed August 27, 2016. http://shush.systems/info/
Tolan, Claire. 2016a. “Decentralised Shush.” YouTube, uploaded May 18, 2016. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=MQUdd3LdzzY&index=2&list=PLe2hNiHTzbyofgpH1bjGmkQQ7SE_FL33n
Tolan, Claire. 2016b. “You’re Worth It 04.04/Yummy OPSEC W Snowcrash Overload and Jenny Mainframe.”
Berlin Community Radio. Aired March 29, 2016. https://www.mixcloud.com/BCR_Radio/youre-worthit-0404-yummy-opsec-w-snowcrash-overload-and-jenny-mainframe/
Weidman, Amanda. 2014. “Anthropology and Voice.” Annual Review of Anthropology 43: 37–51.
doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-030050.
Taking up sonic space: feminized vocality and podcasting as
resistance
Raechel Tiffea and Melody Hoffmannb
a
Merrimack College; bAnoka-Ramsey Community College
The authors of this paper host a podcast called Feminist Killjoys, PhD. Every week, we research
and compile notes about our topic; set up technology to record, talk, and laugh for an hour;
manage our way through software in order to edit the files; and utilize social media to publicize. We have already developed a rich community of listeners and feel proud of the public,
This article was originally published with errors. This version has been amended. Please see Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
14680777.2017.1278106).
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 COMMENTARY AND CRITICISM
accessible contribution we provide to the airwaves. We are one example of countless women-hosted podcasts. We are interested in exploring what it means for women’s voices to take
up sonic space, particularly in a society that polices and criticizes traditionally feminine vocal
tonality (e.g., vocal fry, upspeak). In this essay, we draw on phenomenology and sound theory
to understand the feminist implications of podcasts hosted by women (specifically when
these women have uniquely marginalized vocal styles), how podcasting treats women’s
voices differently than broadcasting as a precursor, and what women in podcasting means
for the field of feminist media studies.
The deviant female voice
Many scholars have theorized about the body and the ways in which different bodies are
and are not granted access to space-taking (Sara Ahmed 2006; Judith Butler 2004). Ahmed
(2006) notes how “inhabiting a body that is not extended by the skin of the social means
the world acquires a new shape” that does not accommodate what is marked as “deviant”
(2006, 20). For example, heteronormative space is freeing for the straight body, but that
same space takes on a constricting, limiting, and often punitive shape for the queer body.
Indeed, the materiality of the flesh and bone has been deeply important to the feminist
project of naming and challenging the oppression and violence enacted against marginalized bodies. However, much less has been discussed about an immaterial element of the
material body: the voice. As sound scholar Yvon Bonenfant (2014) notes:
Sound isn’t solid, but it takes up space … When we sound, there is a resonant field of vibration
that moves through matter, which behaves according to the laws of physics—it vibrates molecules. This vibratory field leaves us, but is of us, and it voyages through space. Other people
hear it. Other people feel it. (n.p.)
Similarly, Stephen Connor (2004) suggests that our senses are not isolated and that we feel
sound as much as we hear it, a phenomenon he calls “intersensoriality.” Both Bonenfant and
Connor illustrate that, like the physical body, the voice occupies space.
We know privileged bodies are more able to occupy space than marginalized bodies:
men’s legs on a subway; white people’s bodies at a lunch counter; rich people’s bodies in
the front of an airplane. Yet we must also take into account how these bodies’ voices occupy
spaces of access and privilege. A man’s voice talking over a woman’s at a meeting; a white
person’s voice interrupting a person of color while being called out on racism; an Englishspeaking boss talking at a non-English-speaking worker. These voices matter and “people
feel it.”
As women, the authors know all about struggling for vocal space in both our work and
personal lives. (Between us, we also occupy other marginalized positions, including being
queer and working-class.) Our podcast was created in the spirit of Do It Yourself (“DIY”) punk
communities that made their own culture instead of consuming what was made for them
(Stephen Duncombe 2008). Like zines, which allow “everyday oddballs [to speak] plainly
about themselves and our society with an honest sincerity, a revealing intimacy, and a healthy
‘fuck you’ to sanctioned authority,” the authors use the podcast as an outlet outside the
normative and decorous boundaries of academic work production (Duncombe 2008, 2).
And we are not alone. Thousands of podcasts are hosted on the internet, with more and
more of them being hosted by a woman or multiple women. This is significant in a world
that teaches us to take up less space and be quiet.
FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 
117
We find it especially interesting that the voices of women on podcasts often reflect the
exact qualities that are policed and criticized by contemporary society. Numerous popular
press articles have been written criticizing the traditionally feminized qualities of women’s
voices, including: vocal fry, upspeak, the use of the word “like,” and women using curse words,
among others (Emily Tess Katz 2014; Naomi Wolf 2015). Academic research has also taken
feminine vocal stylings to task and revealed different societal responses to these vocal tones,
particularly if these gendered voices are also racialized (Rindy C. Anderson, Casey A. Klofstad,
William J. Mayew, and Mohan Venkatachalam 2014).
Women’s voices before podcasting
Hegemonic vocal norms are especially apparent in broadcast journalism, which we understand as a sort of precursor to podcasting (the “radio” of the internet). In journalism school
(where very few podcasters go), soon-to-be anchors, reporters, and radio hosts are trained
to speak with little emotion. Constructing a “plain” voice keeps viewers and listeners focused
on the story, not the storyteller. The lack of emotion keeps reporters from appearing biased
in any way but is also a gendered move given societal constructions of men as emotionless
and women as over-emotional. The traditional broadcaster voice is so ubiquitous that people
who stray from the construct are usually trained to unlearn any vocal variance.
However, in an era where the boundaries between the internet, radio, and TV are increasingly blurred, even those working in traditional outlets are able to be the “oddballs” of journalism. Take for example two women (one queer, one a person of color) who unpoliced their
“deviant” voices. In Minneapolis, KARE 11 anchor Jana Shortal rejects the “no emotion” rule
in her reporting and it stands out in her work. She refers to herself as an “odd duck” in the
newsroom. “I just decided to embrace my own way … and it’s been the best” (personal
communication with authors, July 21, 2016).
The double-jeopardy of being a woman of color in broadcasting is especially harrowing
given the likelihood of being labeled “too Black” or “not Black enough.” For example, LaToya
Dennis of WUWM in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at first worked to sound more “monotone” when
reporting stories. “I didn’t want to sound like I was 12 and I didn’t want to be ‘the Black
reporter’.” But after tiring of mimicking the “status quo” Dennis decided to embrace her voice,
stating, “It’s been one of my best decisions yet” (personal communication with authors, July
22, 2016). Although these two women were aware of the policing of voice in broadcasting
they made an explicit choice to unpolice themselves. As Bonenfant (2014) reminds us, “The
policing of our sound is under our control. We can find ways to unpolice, and enjoy the
unbridledness of our sound” (n.p.). Shortal and Dennis’s success despite (or because of )
rebelling against feminized vocal norms are exceptions in the slowly-changing broadcast
landscape, but embracing one’s “authentic voice” is a defining and foundational trend in
feminist podcasts.
Podcast possibilities
Podcasting allows women and other minorities access to broadcast media but with far fewer
restrictions. For one, there are no norms regarding how to speak. In general, the more you
sound like yourself the better. Even those who receive criticism—disproportionately women
of color—are still incredibly successful. For example, Aminatou Sow of the popular feminist
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 COMMENTARY AND CRITICISM
podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, receives criticism from listeners about her voice. Interestingly,
the criticism isn’t about her sounding Black, nor foreign (she is from Guinea and grew up in
West Africa and Europe), but is about her “uptalking.” Despite the trolls, CYG is what The
Guardian calls “a cultural phenomenon” (Melissa Locker 2016 n.p.). Similarly, two of WNYC’s
most recent podcasts, Two Dope Queens and Sooo Many White Guys, are hosted by Black
women (Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson) who have been accused of sounding “too
Black” (Candace King 2016); however their podcasts continue to be among WNYC’s most
successful.
As feminist media studies scholars we are influenced by how women’s voices continue
to be policed and cherished, and the ways in which we can resist and redefine the norms of
sonic space. We understand that the podcast world is not a utopia, and that as long as there
is an internet, so too will there be trolls disparaging the sound of feminine/feminist voices.
However, we are hopeful about the potentiality of podcast space for traditionally-oppressed
voices, given our own experience being embraced as loud and occasionally vulgar women
podcast hosts, and observing the success of other minority podcast hosts. Furthermore, we
understand podcasts as a medium from which to better understand the ways in which
women are uniquely subjugated in the media, and, more importantly, how this medium
becomes a tool of resistance. In light of an increasingly crowded field of feminist podcasters
and broadcasters who are breaking traditional journalism boundaries with their voices, feminist media studies scholars have much to research in this new form of the digital, feminized
voice.
References
Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Anderson, Rindy C., Casey A. Klofstad, William J. Mayew, and Mohan Venkatachalam. 2014. “Vocal Fry
May Undermine the Success of Young Women in the Labor Market.” PLoS ONE 9 (5): e97506. doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0097506.
Bonenfant, Yvon. 2014. “On Sound and Pleasure: Meditations on the Human Voice.” Sounding Out.
Accessed June 15, 2016. https://soundstudies.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/on-sound-and-pleasuremeditations-on-the-human-voice/?iframe=true&preview=true
Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing Gender. New York, NY: Routledge.
Connor, Stephen. 2004. “Edison’s Teeth; Touching Hearing.” In Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening,
and Modernity, edited by Veit Erlmann, 153–172. Oxford and New York: Berg.
Duncombe, Stephen. 2008. Notes from the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture.
Bloomington: Microcosm Publishing.
Katz, Emily Tess. 2014. “Vocal Fry, Made Famous by Kim Kardashian, is Making Young Women ‘Less
Hirable’.” The Huffington Post. Accessed June 15, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/31/
vocal-fry_n_6082220.html
King, Candace. 2016. “‘2 Dope Queens’ are Bringing More Diversity to Podcasts.” NBCNews.com.
Accessed June 20, 2016. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/2-dope-queens-are-bringingmore-diversity-podcasts-n551306
Locker, Melissa. 2016. “Call Your Girlfriend: Podcast Dishes on Everything from Benghazi to Bieber.” The
Guardian. Accessed June 20, 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/05/call-yourgirlfriend-podcast-politics-pop-culture
Wolf, Naomi. 2015. “Young Women, Give Up the Vocal Fry and Reclaim your Strong Female Voice.” The
Guardian. Accessed June 15, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/05/call-yourgirlfriend-podcast-politics-pop-culture
Spinelli, Martin, and Lance Dann. “Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution.” Podcasting: The
Audio Media Revolution. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. 1–16. Bloomsbury Collections.
Web. 8 Jan. 2022. .
Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 8 January 2022,
20:08 UTC.
Access provided by: McMaster University
Copyright © Martin Spinelli and Lance Dann 2019. All rights reserved. Further reproduction or
distribution is prohibited without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
1
Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
There is so much writing about the moment, and reading about the moment,
and blogging about the moment, and the metrics, and the business, and the
monetization, and the platforms, and the technology, and there seemed to be
no discussion of content, barely none . . . . That’s a dangerous place where it is
all function, no form.
—Julie Shapiro (2016)
In the summer of 2014 tens of thousands of fans queued outside of theatres
across North America and Europe to hear live performances of the podcast
Welcome to Night Vale. In October of that year, This American Life producer
Ira Glass promoted Serial to the roughly three million viewers of The Tonight
Show with Jimmy Fallon and within four weeks the series could boast four
million downloads per episode. In 2016, 3.6 million people were listening to
BBC podcasts per month. By 2017 Aaron Mahnke’s home-produced Lore was
being serialized by Amazon, My Dad Wrote a Porno was selling out the Sydney
Opera House, S-Town was being downloaded ten million times in the first four
days of its release, and podcasting had moved out of its geeky ghetto into an
international cultural mainstream. But, as executive producer of Radiotopia Julie
Shapiro noted, all the buzz around the phenomenon and excitement around the
numbers1 of what some called the “Golden Age”2 of podcasting risked eclipsing
what was really interesting and important about this moment: namely, that new
modes of expression were taking shape and new ways of generating meaning
1
2
Podcasting.indb 1
These numbers, their implications, and their significant shortcomings as markers of actual
listenership are deconstructed in various ways in Chapters 7, 8, and 9.
Berry (2016b) usefully takes up the idea of the “Golden Age” in other histories of podcasting; Bonini
(2015), instead, describes the resurgence of interest as a “Second Age” of podcasting, a period
in which it begins to define itself more clearly. While admittedly somewhat elastic, we think of
podcasting’s Golden Age as beginning in late 2014 with Apple’s inclusion of a built-in podcasting
app on every iPhone and the launch of Serial through to the time of this writing.
24-10-2018 11:07:57
2
Podcasting
and forming relationships were growing around this emergent medium. Johanna
Zorn, long-running executive director of the Third Coast International Audio
Festival, echoed this concern in a manifesto for podcasting that included a plea
that reviewers outside the rarefied world of public radio take audio’s new Golden
Age seriously and recognize podcasting as an art form (2016). This book is, to a
significant extent, a positive answer to that call and seeks to describe podcasting
as a creative medium distinct from radio, with its own unique modes of not
just dissemination but also production, listening, and engagement. While we
do not intend to contribute to the popular hype around podcasting, and while
we do keep a relatively tight historical focus, this book should not be read as an
obituary for podcasting’s revolutionary moment. Instead, we like to think that
it holds the door open for creative audio producers who share the thinking of
Ellen Horne, former executive producer of Radiolab, then executive producer at
Audible.com, that podcasting’s real Golden Age is yet to come (2015).
In the 2005 Radiolab podcast episode called “Space,” the astronomer Neil
deGrasse Tyson notes that human beings can only detect a mere 4 percent of
the matter of the universe. A similar limitation, and the sense of disappointment
that comes with it, also marks this book’s study of podcasting. Of the 350,000
podcasts reported to exist (Quah 2017b) it was only physically possible for us
to reference a tiny handful in efforts to try to describe larger phenomena and
more complex patterns—a bit like our children thinking about the cosmos by
looking at the stars they can see framed by a bedroom window. We admit that
our attentions were most often drawn to those that burned the brightest. Despite
this restriction, it has been possible for us to draw constellation lines around
similar projects, to extrapolate some larger observations about podcasting’s
distinctive characteristics as a medium, and to use these observations to push
and probe some familiar media studies ideas: Our analysis of the editing on
Radiolab allows us to talk about new rhetorical techniques for composed audio
speech and a postmodern (decidedly podcast) approach to science journalism.
Our studies of Welcome to Night Vale, My Dad Wrote a Porno, and Podium.me
describe new and distinctive modes of audience engagement while positioning
podcasting as not merely dependent on social media, but integrated into it as
a new form of social media in and of itself. Our analysis of Serial describes a
“New ‘New Journalism’” native to podcasting and can be used to discuss genre
formation within emergent media. Our studies of The Black Tapes and The Truth
help us define the new form of “podcast drama” as a product of the unique
characteristics of the medium. Two Radiotopia podcasts are used to document
Podcasting.indb 2
24-10-2018 11:07:57
Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
3
the particular intimacy of podcast listening and extended possibilities for mediafacilitated empathy. And our close production analysis of Blood Culture prompts
questions about new media popularity and statistics.
The critical forays supported by these case studies are all organized to make
the argument for the distinctiveness of podcasting. While we unavoidably make
references to radio and consider the associations between podcasting and radio,
we reject the proposition that podcasting is merely an extension of radio and
that the language and methodologies of radio studies are, with some tweaking,
good enough for podcasting.3 They are not essentially the same thing and they
are not separated merely by a distribution technology.4 Radio certainly intersects
the podcast ecosphere and marks it in many ways—not least of which is the
dream of many podcast producers to land what they imagine will be a more
secure job in radio (Markman 2012)—but our aim here is to describe the unique
qualities of our new medium and the experiences it engenders.
Intentions and process
All of this book’s contributions to an understanding of the podcast revolution
are built on our set of interviews with the producers of arguably the most
popular, noteworthy, and culturally significant podcasts from this period in
audio history. From Abumrad to Zaltzman, we have collected the thoughts of the
most accomplished podcast makers (and related professionals) about how their
craft and the medium were developing formally, functionally, and aesthetically.
Given the depth, complexity, and intensity of their insights, we made their voices
and perspectives central to our portrayal of podcasting’s development in this
moment of dynamism.
We began this research with fluidity in mind. Rather than starting with a set
of fixed (and likely arbitrary) demarcations, the arguments, approaches, sets of
case studies, and methodologies we deploy took shape more or less organically.
3
4
Podcasting.indb 3
Berry (2016a), in his extensive meta-study of podcasting across numerous articles (a work that has
prepared the ground for this book), points to some of the limitations of a radio-based approach to
podcast studies. Ragusea (2015), addressing American public radio professionals, demonstrates—
consciously and unconsciously—some of the practical pitfalls of a radio-based approach.
Podcasting is much more than a distribution system. It is not merely a new way of disseminating
audio content made in the old ways for old platforms. After all, the internet has been used to
distribute audio content (for radio broadcast and individual consumption) for more than twenty
years now (for evidence of this history see Spinelli 1996b).
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4
Podcasting
The contents do not borrow much from conceptual categories familiar to
radio studies such as format, geography, programming, nationality, or the
comparatively more manageable set of listening presets on your car’s receiver.5
The book was informed by our previous interests (in media-making practices,
aesthetics, rhetoric, poetics, drama, audiences, and transmedia), by conversations
with friends, colleagues, and students, and at conferences, and it grew out of
our other research and podcast production projects. There are, obviously, large
swathes of podcasting that we do not cover—most significantly, we have barely
touched on podcasting’s most abundant form, the “chatcast.”6 This approach is
in keeping with much of the existing critical writing about podcasting as well
as its coverage in the popular media. Even as Larry Rosin of Edison Research7
reminded us that modest productions can have huge followings, he also suggests
that when most people talk about podcasting they are much more likely to have
in mind something produced by a virtuoso in Brooklyn than a GarageBandusing amateur in Bolton. Yet while we are admittedly less focused on projects
from the deep UGC backstory of podcasting, we certainly do take up some which
have evolved out of DIY approaches like Lore and My Dad Wrote a Porno (and
even in some ways Serial8), as well as podcasts with aspirations for evolution like
Podium.me.
Textual analysis of podcasts, being harder to find in other places, is a key feature
of this book, and our readings of podcasts here—while not vast in number—
are purposefully very granular. Close analytical listenings to episodes from
Bronzeville, Serial, Radiolab, The Heart, and Love + Radio detail how particular
podcasts are constructed, how they are consumed, what meaning strategies and
literary devices they deploy, and to what social and exploratory ends. In addition
5
6
7
8
Podcasting.indb 4
However, it is worth noting here that the BBC has been working with auto manufacturers to
make the driving podcast listening experience more similar to using car radio receiver presets
(Friend 2016).
Friends gathering around a microphone and simply chatting with little or no planning, editing, or
thought to production values, narrative constructions, or podcast direction.
Edison Research is an American market research, survey, and polling company whose substantial
analysis of podcasting trends dates back to 2006, longer than any other annual podcasting research
endeavor we could identify.
This American Life, the radio program that launched Serial into the world both by supporting its
original production and by debuting its first episode for its audience (2.2 million weekly radio
listeners), is itself an example of a long evolution in the history of audio speech media from its
radio form to its podcasting form. While space prohibits our taking it up as a detailed case study, its
influence on many of the podcasts cited in this book is unmistakable. Like the clockwork scratches
and tattooed welts of S-Town’s “witness marks,” an emphasis on strong character and solid narrative
structure should be reminders of This American Life’s contribution to the most prominent American
podcasts.
24-10-2018 11:07:57
Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
5
to these close analytical listenings,9 this book also offers detailed production
studies that describe the pragmatic and coincidental circumstances that inform
and shape the way podcasts are created, recognized, and become models for
future productions and subjects of critical study.
Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution has something to offer (we hope) to
two audiences: the popular and the scholarly. While taking up podcasts familiar
to readers of Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Medium, The Atlantic, and Vulture,
it also aspires to the deep dives of more research-based media writing familiar
to readers of New Media & Society. We hope we have managed to find a hybrid
tone that resonates with a popular enthusiasm (minus some of the boosterism)
combined with significant critical insight and broad-ranging theoretical scope
(minus some of the conditionality and risk aversion). We have approached our
subject not just as academics but also as producers and as listeners. The fact
that podcasting is a part of our own everyday lives has inflected our analysis.
We have attempted to write in a manner that is conscious of our subjective
involvement with the form, while remaining sufficiently detached to adopt a
critical attitude. We use accounts of our personal relationship to the medium
as reflective tools or as entry points for discussion; these passages should be
read as asides that color, corroborate, and sometimes question the issues being
addressed.
Revolution and other terms
What, exactly, is “revolutionary” about podcasting—a term reputedly coined
only to hit a publishing word-count target?10 Clearly our descriptions of
podcasting are laced with words from old and other media: we talk about
seasons and episodes, borrow “cast” from broadcasting, and we still edit “tape”
(albeit on our computers). Culturally, politically, and socially, it is easy to
This practice of close analytical listening is obviously facilitated by two of the most distinctive
features of podcasting: the ease of back-scanning and repeat listening. In practice, close analytical
listening means pausing the playback every few seconds to note what is going on at the level of
language (who is speaking, what they are saying, where they are saying it, and to whom), how the
audio is processed and edited, how the elements are being composed into a narrative and where
that narrative turns or suspends, the reactions I am having as a listener and what associations and
connections I am making, and how music and sound are being deployed to invite ways of listening
and subsequent meanings. See Bernstein (1998) for insights that informed this practice.
10
It is unclear to us whether this is apocryphal, but it is the assertion made in the BBC Radio Four
program, Podcasting: The First Ten Years (2014).
9
Podcasting.indb 5
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6
Podcasting
dismiss podcasting as just another over-hyped and over-sold emergent medium
buoyed by egalitarian but ultimately empty rhetoric.11 Podcasts, as some argue
(Morris and Patterson 2015), are really just another example of “peoplecatchers” which aggregate and commodify listeners for producers, advertisers,
and corporations; and our devices are little more than consumption facilitators.
There has also been appropriate suspicion around the idea of “newness” itself.
Bottomley, for example, argues that “there is little about podcasting that
is truly new, when the full range of radio’s history and forms are taken into
account” (2015: 180). While Lacey, more specifically, invites us to question the
novelty of podcasting as offering integrated multimedia experiences (2014: 71).
These readings, often powerfully informed by Frankfurt School ideas, force us
to keep in mind that podcasting is inextricably intertwined into much larger
media, social, and economic systems. Yet, useful and necessary as the work
of these critics is, a tone of labored pessimism often dominates which can
seem at odds with the perceptions of the producers we interviewed. Part of
this problem, if it is a problem, is that our current critical frames of reference
(most of them inherited from radio studies) might simply not be a very good
fit for podcasting. Too often when looking for a component or a technique
that will mark a podcast or podcasting in general as a “success” we refer to
old forms.12 For example, McHugh (2016) is largely supportive of Markman’s
suggestion that podcasting will succeed not so much because it is a disruptor
of radio but because it “has breathed new life into established, and in some
cases largely forgotten tropes and forms” (2015: 241). Conversely, many of our
interviewees have lost patience with efforts to make sense of podcasting by
listening backward. Abumrad, for example, is exasperated by the fact that his
Radiolab is still considered “new” despite having been in production for more
than a decade (2016).
It seems reasonable to assume that the simple fact of a person’s age will
influence whether that person frames podcasting in terms of radio or is
hungry for revolutionary models. Edison Research’s “Infinite Dial” (2017)
For a history of democratic claims masking the neoliberal forces within emergent media, see Spinelli
(1996a).
12
Throughout this book certain podcasts are referred to as having been “successful,” and this success
will normally be contextualized with reference to the particular concept under discussion. This
could be audience reach, engagement, cultural impact, or serving a socially beneficial purpose. In
Chapter 9, for example, we argue that in a freemium economy perhaps the greatest marker of a
podcast’s “success” is its survival. “Success” in this book, as it is in the larger media ecosystem, is a
fluid term.
11
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Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
7
shows podcast usage as consistently skewed to younger consumers. Podcasting
represents a tantalizing opportunity for a new generation to draw a line under
all of audio history in order to invent and reinvent, discover and rediscover,
audio experiences and relationships on their own diverse terms and in their
own diverse ways. Whether we describe that approach as naive or bold, the
chance to reimagine drama, journalism, science, philosophy, sex, spirituality,
and even humanity, is rare and refreshing and should be seized without
apology. Why would Millennial media makers and consumers want to carry
100 years of broadcast history with them into podcasting? Why would we
want to transfer 150 years of journalistic rules and codes into podcasting? Why
would anyone dutifully accept that baggage? And crucially, we must ask, why
should postmodern producers and listeners be burdened by the tired modernist
mantra of “make it new”—constantly forced to refer to past work in order to
describe their own as “innovative”? Simply put, podcasting is new for many of its
producers whether we can trace its history through Bell, Edison, Marconi, Reith,
McLeish, Shepherd, and Plowright or not.13
With these competing currents in mind, and in order to help chart a straight
course to something that might be called “podcast studies,” we offer here a clear
and consolidated list of the eleven major podcasting features and concepts that
we explore and detail in the rest of the book:
1. Consumption on earbuds encourages an interior and intimate mode
of listening. This is qualitatively and conceptually different from radio
speaker listening (and even listening on open headphones) and facilitates a
different kind of relationship.
2. Podcasting is primarily a mobile medium. Podcasts move with the human
body and are consumed in urban spaces, while in transit, in the streets and
in other public places.
3. Podcasts offer more listener control. It is extremely easy to replay a podcast
and listen to it repeatedly. Similarly, we can back-scan a podcast to listen to
a section multiple times; this allows for different production practices and
modes of shaping content.
13
Podcasting.indb 7
Also crucially, none of this diminishes radio. Its own distinct advantages are clear—chiefly its
“liveness” and its ability to deliver breaking events in real time. Whatever podcasting is, it is not
“live.” This is not something likely to change and none of the people we interviewed considered it
inevitable. Even as podcasting garnered media buzz, radio continued to have vastly larger audiences
in terms of numbers (Rosin 2016 and Edison 2017), particularly in cars where radio is consumed
more often by a factor of ten (Friend 2016).
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8
Podcasting
4. Podcast listening requires more selection and active engagement on
the part of the consumer in choosing listening options. It is a push-pull
technology: listeners pull to discover and, if they subscribe, a feed pushes
them new material. Discovery happens in a different way than on radio
and, arguably, opportunities for serendipity are reduced.
5. Podcasts can thrive on niche global audiences. They are less rooted
in material communities, regions, and countries (an advantage and a
disadvantage).
6. Podcasts are interwoven into social media and as such have a heightened
capacity to enhance engagement with, and activate, an audience. The same
mobile devices used to participate in social media are the devices used to
listen to (and in some cases produce) podcasts and there is ready and easy
overlap between these uses.
7. Podcasts can be produced and distributed without the approval of a
commissioning editor, program controller, or gatekeeper. This means that
creators are often working with great freedom and little support.
8. Podcasts are usually distributed as part of a freemium model: there is no
charge for the core product and income is earned through a variety of
secondary means.
9. Podcasts are “evergreen,” available (theoretically) in perpetuity and face
greater obstacles in achieving “liveness” than other media.
10. There is no fixed or definitive text of a podcast episode or installment.
Mistakes can be corrected, apologies added, advertisements rotated, and
sound remixed.
11. Podcast do not have the timing and scheduling constraints of broadcast
media. They can be as long as they need to be and released whenever
desired.
While, as we have noted, it is certainly possible to find traces (and even fullthroated embodiments) of these individual characteristics and opportunities
on radio and in other places, we find them more native to podcasting. Taken
together, they encourage us to find a distinct discourse or vocabulary for
appreciating and studying podcasts. Podcasting deserves its own language.
In spite of the fact that podcasting is audio designed to be delivered through
a borderless internet, our interviews and observations revealed significant
differences in podcasting cultures worth mentioning. Many of our interviewees
had a sense that the general momentum in the English-speaking audio world
Podcasting.indb 8
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Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
9
had shifted from the grand façade of the BBC’s Broadcasting House to the hipster
cafés of Brooklyn.14 This shift has also been influenced by the broad political
currents of recent years that have had an effect on the very idea of public service
broadcasting: it is a move from a reliance on a license fee or state or institutional
support into an environment in which everyone has had to be much more canny
(some might say “crass”) about getting money from sponsors and listeners. This
is a model American producers have been familiar with for decades.
These changes have influenced sound and style. Many of our interviewees
(Prest, Baker, Sawyer, Hall, Shapiro, Heppermann, and Zaltzman) noted, and
sometimes lamented, that what they hear as a chatty, familiar, personal, fluid,
intimate, or even “American” tone has come to be associated with podcasting
in general in the public imagination. This was often contrasted with a more
“European” style of audio production frequently described as sophisticated,
anonymous, musical, sound-rich, crafted, and even male.15 Interestingly, this
style also tended to be associated with radio rather than podcasting.
Podcast forms
While our chapters invoke broad, familiar media studies frames such as formal
analysis, production analysis, and reception/engagement analysis to better
understand podcasting, they are built around particular case studies. We take
the position that larger ideas are only reliably generated and expanded through a
close examination of specific podcasts. This specificity is particularly important
in our chapters on podcast forms. For example, Chapter 5, “Don’t Look Back:
The New Possibilities of Podcast Drama,” examines particular structures,
practices, and levels of investment on Bronzeville, The Black Tapes, The Truth,
and other fictional podcasts. It locates the emergent form of podcast drama
as a subset of audio drama, one that is determined by the modes in which the
work is produced and consumed. Historically audio drama, and radio drama in
particular, has been created to be listened to either informally and disposably or
as sonically demanding, immersive experiences. Our case studies show that a
new generation of podcast drama producers is creating works positioned in the
14
15
Podcasting.indb 9
Rosin (2016) emphasized this new location of energy and was very alert to the assumptions this has
generated inside and outside of the podcasting ecosphere.
McHugh (2016) makes similar observations, hearing in the “European feature” style a “strong
authorial choreography” similar to that associated with film directors.
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10
Podcasting
sweet spot between these poles, serials that are narratively sophisticated while
being sonically stripped down. These works are designed to be experienced as a
secondary activity that does not expect an audience to engage in the immediate
and, possibly distracting, task of creating location, character, and action in their
imagination.
Earlier attempts to grapple with and identify a similar “ideal position” for
podcast audio in relation to listeners have been useful if somewhat stymied by
imprecise or underthought case study choices.16 By contrast, the case studies
taken up in this book are by and large produced with the specific and distinctive
forms and characteristics of podcasting in mind. We contend that material
produced with this awareness engenders a different kind of listening. Two such
examples are Love + Radio and The Heart, both discussed in Chapter 4, “In
Bed with Radiotopians: Podcast Intimacy, Empathy, and Narrative.” While it is
still difficult to use the word “typical” when describing podcast genres, these
Radiotopia offerings are very sympathetic to the formal characteristics we have
identified in podcasting. This chapter casts their producers as “empathy artists”
through their careful use of interiorization to engage the intimacy of podcast
earbud listening. In the end, it suggests that certain subjects might have an
affinity for podcasting, such as sex and psychological play and manipulation.
Achieving these effects often relies on a high level of skill in sound design, which
invites and encourages repeat listening.17
Podcast production
The chapters that focus on podcasting production suggest that an awareness
of podcasting’s distinctiveness has opened the door to creative practices (and
dilemmas) not found on radio. For example, the lack of a fixed broadcast
schedule allows for more and different kinds of integration of listener ideas
and voices. Also, the lack of a permanent (or “once broadcast”) audio text in
podcasting means that nearly everything is updateable and reframeable rather
Nyre (2015), for example, found that listening to “podcast” content while moving through in urban
environments engendered responses quite similar to listening to “live” radio content. The podcasts
he chose to sample were not emblematic of the form as we now describe it. For his “podcast” material
he selected evergreen radio content of an “educational” nature merely repackaged as podcasts.
17
Interestingly, we have found that sound art projects that are more “pure”—that are more
decontextualized and less dependent on narrative—have not yet made much of an impact in podcast
culture.
16
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Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
11
than static. While certainly a creative and editorial opportunity, this malleability
is contentious terrain for many of the producers we interviewed, particularly as
it relates to the framing and managing of advertising. The issue of advertising
in general continued to dog many of the practitioners we spoke to and is also
prominent in a range of other interviews with podcast professionals currently
available. Like many of the other podcasting issues we seek to place in context,
this one also appears marked by generational and cultural divides. Hall (2016)
and others (cited in McHugh 2016) remained concerned that ads diminish the
experience of podcast listening, and responses to the issue range from tense
ambivalence (Abumrad) to creative engagement (Prest and Baker), to an almost
complete lack of concern about it as an issue (many of the young producers of
Podium.me).
Several of the practitioners who feature in Chapter 9 frame this issue of
advertising in terms of how it might intervene in the integrity of the podcaster’s
relationship with their listener—one in which a sense of authenticity is a key
component. The viral success of independent podcasts such as Aaron Mahnke’s
Lore and Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces can be ascribed to their homebrew
qualities and the directness of their communication. These projects, created
without exterior oversight, are not part of a marketing scheme or programming
schedule; they tend to feature content that is a product of the producer’s
interests and their intuition about what their audiences will appreciate. This
relationship becomes clouded once sponsors and advertisers are introduced
into the process and can create the perception that a host is no longer telling
their audience something because they want to, but because they are being
paid to do so. Alex Blumberg’s Gimlet Media attempts to position itself as a
response to this conundrum, as proof that, in Ira Glass’s words, “Public Radio is
ready for capitalism” (quoted in Greiff 2015). The chapter notes that the issues
of advertiser funding and authenticity have by no means been put to rest by
Gimlet; this was evidenced by the audience outcry that followed the network’s
cancellation of Starlee Kine’s highly praised but fiscally unwieldy investigative
series The Mystery Show.
Our production analyses are not limited to professional projects defined
by familiar ideas of quality or those that have the goal of making money. Most
podcasts are marked by other social, personal, political, or cultural agendas;
their study provides unique insight into different production practices with farreaching implications. Chapter 6, “A Utopian Moment: Podium.me, Diversity,
and Youth Podcasting,” profiles Podium.me as a proactive and progressive youth
Podcasting.indb 11
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12
Podcasting
media project and frames diversity in terms of experience rather than quotas or
access. It examines Podium.me’s practice-based approach in contrast to other,
more institutional approaches to issues of diversity. Further, it suggests that the
understanding of mobile audio technology has been remarkably one-sided,
focusing almost exclusively on its functions for listening rather than recording.
Podium.me’s focus on the phone as a recording device (even before it is a listening
device) allows us to rewrite an important piece of script about mobile media.
In terms of production and dissemination, Podium.me is not only thoroughly
interwoven into social media but is so enmeshed in an environment of exchange
and response that it can function like a social medium itself.18 As noted,
an integration into social media is another key aspect of podcasting, and, as
we see in Chapter 7, “Blood Culture: Gaming the Podcast System,” the actual
relationships of social media can become artistic material themselves. This
chapter positions the audio drama series Blood Culture in terms of practice as
research. It details the development, production, and distribution of a project
that integrated podcasting as part of a multilayered media experience comprised
of film, games, and audio as well as social media. Blood Culture’s approach to
the larger media ecosystem is presented as an attempt to address a podcast’s
problem of existing in a potentially limitless “sea of free audio” (Shapiro 2016)
and the challenges of discoverability faced by even the most prominent of
podcasters (Friend 2016). This chapter presents not just the production process
of an award-winning podcast, but the means by which social media, transmedia
techniques, and a covert knowledge of Apple’s algorithm for deriving its podcast
charts can be deployed to develop a following within a community of dedicated
audio drama fans.
Podcasting engagement and reception
The engagement that happens through podcasts, not just how they are received
by an audience, but the relationships they invite between multiple combinations
of makers, listeners, and subjects, is where we find podcasting’s most distinctive
characteristics. Through these relationships different kinds of meaning can
be accessed. Brendan Baker, the producer on Love + Radio, was particularly
18
This situation is clearly enabled to some degree by the fact that the same phones and devices are used
interchangeably to engage in social media as well as to record, edit, and upload audio.
Podcasting.indb 12
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Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
13
useful here when he described radio as “information getting transmitted,” and
podcasting as more “abstract” and open to multiple engagements and perceptions
(2016). For him, radio was for clarity while podcasting was for subtlety.
Among the podcasts committed to working with this subtlety, Radiolab is
perhaps the most accomplished and the most well-known. Chapter 2, “Splatters
of Shit: Story, Science, and Digital Speech on Radiolab,” presents Radiolab
as a new form of postmodern podcast science journalism and enquiry that
incorporates perspectives not conventionally associated with traditional science
reporting. We argue that this approach is facilitated by a dense, sculptural,
authentically digital manipulating of audio speech that does not pretend to be
real conversation. One of its other particularly postmodern aspects (mentioned
above in other contexts) is its natural and easy acceptance of the impermanence
of its episodes. On Radiolab there is no urtext; after installments are released they
can be changed online for editorial reasons. This chapter examines, for example,
the Yellow Rain segment from the 2012 “Fact of the Matter” episode which is
altered not just for an apology but for an extended discussion of the editorial
thinking that led to the initial misstep. While this aspect of podcasting makes
for more a vibrant and responsive engagement with updated relevance, it does
present some new challenges for scholars used to referring to broadcast audio
material using time codes that can then be used by other listeners. Many of the
hundreds of essays written about the 1938 Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast
of the War of the Worlds rely on the definitive timings of the broadcast event
(see Spinelli 2009); the relative ease of identifying, accessing, and discussing
specific moments of that broadcast text has helped make it arguably the most
studied and most famous in radio history. When conducting the close analytical
listenings in this book we can only reference time codes for the version we have
downloaded (these are noted in the References). Rather than being unsettled by
this lack of a definitive text and its implications for conventional scholarship, we
take from this a reminder that a podcast is more than a mere audio text, it is a
relationship invited through an audio text between people involved in making
and listening to that text and beyond.
Therefore, while individual listening might be the moment in which a
podcast “happens” in some sense, it is possible, and indeed necessary, to
consider larger formations of podcast audiences. Chapter 3, “You Are Not Alone:
Podcast Communities, Audiences, and Welcome to Night Vale,” examines how
social media is and is not used in audience formation. We describe the podcast
audience as much more “knowable” than the radio audience, and the interaction
Podcasting.indb 13
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14
Podcasting
(particularly the fandom) as more intense; this is evidenced by engagement at
live performances of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. Joseph Fink and Jeffrey
Cranor have created a work that possesses a rigid and clearly articulated story
world, but one that is also creatively porous, providing a space that is open for
their audience to playfully share art, costume design, memes, and fictions. This
transforms the listeners’ relationship to the text from being individualized and
semiotic to being producerly and communal.
While specific and highly committed listeners are easier to identify and their
engagement is easier to document, larger configurations of audience remain
quite abstract and difficult to quantify because the very numbers themselves are
extremely slippery: As Davies (2014) pointed out, downloads do not equate to
listeners, or even listens, and in an age in which it is possible to game the data
around a podcast by buying downloads through click farms (as we document
in Chapter 7), all listening figures should be taken with a generous pinch of
salt. Data from podcast- or network-specific listening apps like the BBC iPlayer
or NPR One, listener surveys, and even more anecdotal investigations19 are
proving more reliable than numbers from aggregators and platforms. These
increasingly suggest that audiences are straining beyond familiar demographic
categories and are forming around harder-to-predict niche tastes that often
overlap in unexpected ways. Perhaps for this reason many of the accomplished
podcast makers that we interviewed repeatedly focus on making work that
they themselves find interesting rather than channeling creative energies into
anticipating the interests of some abstract audience. The fact of producers
building podcasts around their own enquiries, pleasures, and curiosities
without a clear demographic in mind is often the route to astounding success
in podcasting. While Serial’s impact was certainly supported by a myriad of
promotional and external factors, it would not have made the waves that it did
without the commitment and creative risk-taking of its producers. Chapter 8
about that first household-name in podcasting, “The Truth About Serial: It’s
Not Really About a Murder,” describes it as bringing into the mainstream a new
kind of podcast audience engagement and a new set of postmodern rules for
journalism unique to podcasting. In that chapter we argue that the presenter is
the main character of the production and her change and evolution should be
seen as its real focus. Through Serial, we suggest a New “New Journalism” finds
its native medium in podcasting, and, podcast journalism—itself the real subject
19
See, for example, Ganesh (2016).
Podcasting.indb 14
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Introduction: The Audio Media Revolution
15
of the series—is shown to be much more open ended and dependent on listener
interpretation than approaches taken in previously established radio versions of
true-crime programs.
Listening forward
Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution endeavors to capture a transitional
moment in the history of audio making and listening. It is a moment in which
marginal, DIY, UGC practices bursts into the more popular consciousness and
begin to be taken seriously as more than just a subset of an older medium. It is a
moment of energy and passion and commitment and creativity and investment,
but is also a moment in which established practices are finally beginning to
crystallize. Yet even as podcasting begins its adulthood, it remains a media scene
of substantial risk-taking and innovation in which tremendous dedication to
a niche idea or an artistic vision can find purchase with thousands and even
millions of sympathetic or curious minds.
As the earlier allusion to Radiolab’s “Space” reminds, our scope in this book
can only ever be very limited. This may well be the first and last book to attempt
to deal with podcasting writ large and we would very much like to see other
books about the medium take up, in more specific and precise ways, elements of
podcasting that we were only able to reference in passing. These contributions
might include: more detailed studies of podcasting as a vehicle for diversity and
for conversations within and between minority communities;20 more systematic
examinations of amateur podcasting—which fill the vast majority of the podcast
ecosphere; surveys of non-English-language podcast cultures; analyses of the
particularities of music and sound in podcasts; studies of podcasting as a public
relations vehicle for small companies and large corporations; studies of how
new and diverse methods of funding and monetizing podcasts influence and
condition the character and creativity of those podcasts; investigations of the
literary potential of podcasting beyond being a vehicle for audiobooks; surveys
of podcast-specific language, rhetorical devices, and manipulations of speech;
podcasting’s use in education; forecasts of how podcasting might change the
missions of large national broadcasters; and exposés of the mechanics and
20
Podcasting.indb 15
Sarah Florini’s research (2015) on podcasting’s “Chitlin’ Circuit” would be an excellent starting
point.
24-10-2018 11:07:58
16
Podcasting
algorithms of podcast placement and promotion within podcast aggregators and
platforms. Other viable ideas will certainly come to the fore as the study of the
medium develops further. Through these future ventures we hope that, with a
critical foundation laid and arguments about what podcasting is or is not put to
one side, a more robust culture of review and analysis of specific podcasts (the
audio and the relationships) might be built that would offer us regular deep dives
into the medium, similar to those that we enjoy with film and television.
Podcasting.indb 16
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Ideological Struggles and Pragmatic Realities
Special Sound: The Creation and Legacy of the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Louis Niebur
Print publication date: 2010
Print ISBN-13: 9780195368406
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368406.001.0001
Ideological Struggles and Pragmatic Realities
Louis Niebur
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368406.003.0002
Abstract and Keywords
Opening with a discussion of the material problems encountered by the
Workshop’s supporters after its initial proposal, this chapter primarily concerns
the aggressive but ultimately futile attempts by the BBC’s Music Department to
prevent the studio’s creation. Frightened of an academic studio under the BBC
banner, and determined to protect the “rational development of music” in
Britain, department heads proposed a series of often‐ridiculous alternatives to a
full‐fledged electronic music studio. Ultimately, those in opposition to the studio
were successful in shaping a great deal of the final studio’s makeup, largely
forbidding the use of the studio by outside composers and initially limiting the
output of the Workshop to electronic “sound effects” for dramatic productions.
The chapter then examines the studio’s tiny budget, offers detailed discussion of
the equipment it acquired, and explores its early compositions.
Keywords: BBC, radio, sound effects, radiophonic, electronic music
The story behind the creation of the Radiophonic Workshop reveals a complex
history of compromises and collaboration faced by no other electronic music
studio in the twentieth century. Out of the internal philosophical battles,
economic frustrations, political dramas, and concessions, however, developed a
musical style unique in several respects, one dependent to an unusually high
degree on the studio equipment’s idiosyncrasies and on the space in which its
composers worked. A study of radiophonic music must deal with these issues,
which are often ignored in other areas of research. With a more distinct
impression of the space and equipment from which this music originated, an
Page 1 of 34
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Ideological Struggles and Pragmatic Realities
understanding of the hows and wheres, we can achieve a deeper understanding
of the whys behind radiophonic music.
On April 13, 1956, at an Entertainment Divisional Meeting, the BBC’s head of
central program operations, Brian George, proposed setting up a small
laboratory in order to experiment with electronic sound effects in radio
productions. Shortly before the broadcast of All That Fall, in November 1956 he
commissioned a report from Alec Nesbitt, an engineer who followed
developments in electronic music, on the subject of musique concrète and
elektronische Musik; in assembling the report Nesbitt received help from
producers Donald McWhinnie and Douglas Cleverdon, T. H. Eckersley (assistant
head of central program operations, Recording), and composers Daphne Oram (a
studio manager [SM]) and André Almuro. In this five-page document they traced
the history of the genres, described the existing facilities in France, Germany,
the United States, and the rest of Europe, and discussed ways of establishing a
similar studio at the BBC. In it they stressed the value such a studio would offer
to dramatic productions, and noted that the unique application of electronic
sounds to drama increased the potential for truly new ideas:
(p.36) Cologne and Paris have developed this medium primarily as an art
form, but in this country there is a demand by Features Department for the
use of Musique Concrete [sic].…Undoubtedly, Radiophonic Music is in a
primitive and elementary form and it therefore seems prudent to
commence our work from the first principles, and in doing so it is probable
that we will develop a facet of the technique that has been overlooked by
the workers on the Continent.1
They argued that in addition to studio equipment, the new department would
need four employees, never referred to as “musicians”: an engineer capable of
creating and repairing machines, and three “tape editors and devisors of special
effects.” They suggest that SMs could do the editing and effects, a position
slightly higher than an engineer in the BBC hierarchy and one that valued
creativity and originality. After examining the document, George assembled a
group of producers, SMs, and other bureaucratic officials from various
departments to form the Electrophonic Effects Committee (EEC), which
convened for the first time on December 14, 1956.2 At this meeting, they
debated again what kind of facilities and staffing were needed for the proposed
unit, who would direct it, and what its administrative structure would be. Donald
McWhinnie had recently traveled to Paris to meet personally the composers
behind musique concrète, in preparation for his work on All That Fall, and on
behalf of this committee McWhinnie submitted a report to George wherein he
noted the necessity of
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Ideological Struggles and Pragmatic Realities
obtaining facilities for private experiment and for making recordings which
may never be broadcast. Clearly the exact requirements would have to be
worked out in detail with a technical expert and in consultation with the
Club d’Essai: I should say that the basic essentials would be a room
containing two or three tape reproduction machines, turntables for slow
speed of 78s, a tape-recorder, facilities for echo, filters, etc., and a small
studio with two or three microphone points, an old piano, various
percussion instruments and space for two or three actors.3
Since the committee found the extemporaneous qualities of sound effects
especially important, they noted that “perhaps it might be stressed that the
ability to improvise will be a quality preeminently to be looked for both on the
technical and production sides of the team.”4 They also questioned in this initial
meeting whether they wanted to “loan” SMs and engineers to the new
department or create permanent appointments, tentatively settling on the
former. (Later documents indicate that the committee believed musicians/
engineers (p.37) would be able to deal with electronic sound effects only for a
limited amount of time before succumbing to mental instability!)5 In this
description of the potential duties of staff in the studio, there is a remarkable
similarity to the fears first voiced about the staff of the BBC’s earlier Research
Division in the 1920s and 1930s: “Whilst a free hand must be given to those
working in the section, it will be necessary to exercise a strict, but
understanding control over their work. Self-discipline is most important as their
work will be erratic and will not follow a normal shift pattern.”6
Cleverdon and Searle’s production of Night Thoughts, from December of the
previous year, was said to have been “restricted owing to the limitation both in
the numbers and the performance of our existing tape machines,” and the
document concludes by suggesting that “once basic techniques are mastered,
discussions should commence with Features and Drama Departments,” then
offering a tentative shopping list for the basic equipment necessary for setting
up a studio. Basing their list on Continental models, they included as many
pieces of equipment as possible, knowing they wouldn’t get everything they
asked for. George followed up this optimistic list by noting that “you perhaps set
your sights a little bit too high in terms of staff and technical facilities, bearing
in mind the present financial stringency.”7 Up to this point, all of the members of
the EEC were representatives from sound broadcasting. On March 6, 1957, they
agreed to ask a representative from television, Leonard Salter, to join them.8
They also decided to change the name of the subject under discussion from
“Electrophonic” to “Radiophonic,” because the former term was currently used
in brain research. They agreed on the change and subsequently changed their
name to the Radiophonic Effects Committee (REC).
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Ideological Struggles and Pragmatic Realities
At the same time these decisions were made, in his enthusiasm to teach others
within the BBC about the potential of electronic and tape effects and music,
producer Douglas Cleverdon organized a monthly listening group for the
playback of electronic music, starting February 19, 1957. He devoted the first
evening to Nadja Etoilée by French musique concrète composer André Almuro.9
Another typical evening’s playlist consisted of Jim Fassett’s Symphony of the
Birds, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Study II, Herbert Eimert’s Etudes
Übertongemische, Luciano Berio’s Mutazioni, and Bruno Maderna’s Notturno.
That night’s listening concluded with Ruisselle, an hour-long radiophonic poem
with words by Roger Pillaudin and music by Maurice Jarre. Cleverdon sent out
invitations a week before the event, announcing it as a playback of
“experimental recordings in the fields of electronic music, musique concrète,
and other forms which may generally be described as radiophonic music.”10
Cleverdon was on the lookout for composers, technicians, poets, or SMs who
might be interested in the techniques and equipment available to them at that
time.
(p.38) Location
One of the biggest obstacles facing the REC in setting up an electronic studio
was the lack of a viable site. They sought a location that would provide
“adequate daylight, large rooms, little interference with other people, peaceful
surroundings, and…not too easily accessible to keep away people not connected
with the work.”11 The need for several soundproof rooms, free from interference
and noise, with close access to echo rooms and existing studios, made the search
more difficult than it might otherwise have been. They considered Nightingale
Square, a huge Victorian-Gothic nineteenth-century building in Clapham that
had been a convent for elderly Belgian nuns before being taken over by the BBC
Engineering Department.12 (It had the advantage of being close to electrical
equipment and facilities.) The most desirable site, though, and the original
thought of the committee, was the Maida Vale studios, where the majority of the
BBC’s music was recorded in five large studios. The BBC had used the huge art
nouveau Maida Vale complex, built in 1909, since the 1930s, when they had it
converted from a large sunken roller skating rink, the Maida Vale Roller Skating
Palace and Club, into a multipurpose studio complex for use by the BBC
Symphony Orchestra, chamber music groups, and dance bands. Since then, it
had housed all of the BBC’s major music recording studios. Although it offered
the perfect location, there was initially no available space in that facility. Four
months after the REC began making inquiries, however, a small collection of
rooms was offered to the fledgling studio, situated in the old balcony of the
sunken rink.13 The Engineering Department cleared two rooms to house the new
Radiophonic Workshop: the first, Room 13/14 (created by knocking down a
center dividing wall to create a large working space), and the small adjoining
studio, Room 15.
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Ideological Struggles and Pragmatic Realities
My purpose in dwelling on the materiality of this space is to create a dramatic
sense of the conditions of production at the Workshop. It is easy enough to
describe the details of the original rooms; what I hope to do instead is to
describe how these details combined to create the specific environment needed
for the creation of the radiophonic sounds under discussion. I want to emphasize
that I am not concentrating on material specifics to prove a “perfect
conjunction” of elements, or a “unique combination” of people and equipment
banding together to create works of universal genius. Although it is certainly
true that these works can be judged by some set of standards as either good or
bad, successful or unsuccessful, that is not my primary goal. Rather, by simply
showing the hidden details of production in their original context, I will
demonstrate the idiosyncratic nature of these works’ creation.
Today Room 13/14 betrays nothing of its radiophonic past; the equipment has
long since been evacuated and the space converted into office cubicles. But (p.
39) as the winter of 1958 turned into spring and the Workshop’s opening
approached, the REC and the Engineering Department began filling this newly
created space with electronics. The room was about twenty-five feet long and
fifteen feet wide, with two frosted windows on the south side, and doors leading
into the main hallway directly opposite on the north. The ceiling was low, with a
thick supporting beam running its length and concrete arches extending from it
on both the east and west ends of the room, making for an irregular work space.
Short carpeting covered the floors, and a series of soft lights illuminated the
space. The lack of ventilation in the room was immediately a cause for concern.
It could become very stuffy, because the source of outside air was often blocked
to eliminate sound from the busy Delaware Road outside. Located right next to
this room (usually just called Room 13) was Room 15, which …
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