Lance Dann – författare

PROSE Award for Excellence in Media and Cultural Studies Finalist 2020Born out of interviews with the producers of some of the most popular and culturally significant podcasts to date (Welcome to Night Vale, Radiolab, Serial, The Black Tapes, We’re Alive, The Heart, The Truth, Lore, Love + Radio, My Dad Wrote a Porno, and others) as well as interviews with executives at some of the most important podcasting institutions and entities (the BBC, Radiotopia, Gimlet Media, Audible.com, Edison Research, Libsyn and others), Podcasting documents a moment of revolutionary change in audio media. The fall of 2014 saw a new iOS from Apple with the first built-in “Podcasts” app, the runaway success of Serial, and podcasting moving out of its geeky ghetto into the cultural mainstream. The creative and cultural dynamism of this moment, which reverberates to this day, is the focus of Podcasting. Using case studies, close analytical listening, quantitative and qualitative analysis, production analysis, as well as audience research, it suggests what podcasting has to contribute to a host of larger media-and-society debates in such fields as: fandom, social media and audience construction; new media and journalistic ethics; intimacy, empathy and media relationships; cultural commitments to narrative and storytelling; the future of new media drama; youth media and the charge of narcissism; and more. Beyond describing what is unique about podcasting among other audio media, this book offers an entry into the new and evolving field of podcasting studies.

PROSE Award for Excellence in Media and Cultural Studies Finalist 2020Born out of interviews with the producers of some of the most popular and culturally significant podcasts to date (Welcome to Night Vale, Radiolab, Serial, The Black Tapes, We’re Alive, The Heart, The Truth, Lore, Love + Radio, My Dad Wrote a Porno, and others) as well as interviews with executives at some of the most important podcasting institutions and entities (the BBC, Radiotopia, Gimlet Media, Audible.com, Edison Research, Libsyn and others), Podcasting documents a moment of revolutionary change in audio media. The fall of 2014 saw a new iOS from Apple with the first built-in “Podcasts” app, the runaway success of Serial, and podcasting moving out of its geeky ghetto into the cultural mainstream. The creative and cultural dynamism of this moment, which reverberates to this day, is the focus of Podcasting. Using case studies, close analytical listening, quantitative and qualitative analysis, production analysis, as well as audience research, it suggests what podcasting has to contribute to a host of larger media-and-society debates in such fields as: fandom, social media and audience construction; new media and journalistic ethics; intimacy, empathy and media relationships; cultural commitments to narrative and storytelling; the future of new media drama; youth media and the charge of narcissism; and more. Beyond describing what is unique about podcasting among other audio media, this book offers an entry into the new and evolving field of podcasting studies.

Podcasting in a Platform Age explores the transition underway in podcasting by considering how the influx of legacy and new media interest in the medium is injecting professional and corporate logics into what had been largely an amateur media form. Many of the most high-profile podcasts today, however, are produced by highly-skilled media professionals, some of whom are employees of media corporations. Legacy radio and new media platform giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify are also making big (and expensive) moves in the medium by acquiring content producers and hosting platforms. This book focuses on three major aspects of this transformation: formalization, professionalization, and monetization. Through a close read of online and press discourse, analysis of podcasts themselves, participant observations at podcast trade shows and conventions, and interviews with industry professionals and individual podcasters, John Sullivan outlines how the efforts of industry players to transform podcasting into a profitable medium are beginning to challenge the very definition of podcasting itself.

Podcasting in a Platform Age explores the transition underway in podcasting by considering how the influx of legacy and new media interest in the medium is injecting professional and corporate logics into what had been largely an amateur media form. Many of the most high-profile podcasts today, however, are produced by highly-skilled media professionals, some of whom are employees of media corporations. Legacy radio and new media platform giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify are also making big (and expensive) moves in the medium by acquiring content producers and hosting platforms. This book focuses on three major aspects of this transformation: formalization, professionalization, and monetization. Through a close read of online and press discourse, analysis of podcasts themselves, participant observations at podcast trade shows and conventions, and interviews with industry professionals and individual podcasters, John Sullivan outlines how the efforts of industry players to transform podcasting into a profitable medium are beginning to challenge the very definition of podcasting itself.

The growth of scholarly podcasting engenders radical possibilities for how we conceive of knowledge creation and peer review. By investigating the historical development of the norms of scholarly communication, the unique affordances of sound-based scholarship and the transformative potential of new modes of creating and reviewing expert knowledge, Podcast or Perish is the call to action academia needs, by asking how podcasting might change the very ways we think about scholarly work.

The growth of scholarly podcasting engenders radical possibilities for how we conceive of knowledge creation and peer review. By investigating the historical development of the norms of scholarly communication, the unique affordances of sound-based scholarship and the transformative potential of new modes of creating and reviewing expert knowledge, Podcast or Perish is the call to action academia needs, by asking how podcasting might change the very ways we think about scholarly work.

If you've ever been startled by a sound in the dark, you already know the unique power of audio horror. Horror Podcasting gives readers critical insight into the enduring power of horror storytelling through sound.From the oral tradition of campfire tales to today’s immersive, serialized audio dramas, the horror genre has found a natural home in the podcasting form. With its ability to tap into the listener’s imagination and provoke visceral responses, podcasting has reinvigorated horror storytelling. This book traces the lineage of sound-based horror, examining the rise of hit shows like Welcome to Night Vale, The Black Tapes Podcast, A Scottish Podcast, and One by One, which adopt the serialized format popularized by true crime podcasting post-2014.Through case studies spanning independent creators, networked productions, and public service broadcasters, Horror Podcasting explores recurring themes in horror’s audio revival. Two chapters written from a practitioner’s perspective delve into both the creative process and the spine-tingling joy of crafting and consuming these dramas.

If you've ever been startled by a sound in the dark, you already know the unique power of audio horror. Horror Podcasting gives readers critical insight into the enduring power of horror storytelling through sound.From the oral tradition of campfire tales to today’s immersive, serialized audio dramas, the horror genre has found a natural home in the podcasting form. With its ability to tap into the listener’s imagination and provoke visceral responses, podcasting has reinvigorated horror storytelling. This book traces the lineage of sound-based horror, examining the rise of hit shows like Welcome to Night Vale, The Black Tapes Podcast, A Scottish Podcast, and One by One, which adopt the serialized format popularized by true crime podcasting post-2014.Through case studies spanning independent creators, networked productions, and public service broadcasters, Horror Podcasting explores recurring themes in horror’s audio revival. Two chapters written from a practitioner’s perspective delve into both the creative process and the spine-tingling joy of crafting and consuming these dramas.

The first book-length treatment of This American Life, Empathy Machines contextualizes the influential show within the history of radio, looking back to radio’s golden era and the para-social connections that it encouraged, as well as the formation of NPR in the 1960s and the “Great Society Liberalism” that guided its programming and approach to the audience. Empathy Machines identifies This American Life as a central cultural institution in the evolution of empathy as a “liberal feeling” central to podcast storytelling and the neoliberal era in which it developed. This American Life revitalized the public radio traditions of investigative journalism and sonically inventive audio production. An early adopter of podcasting as a time-shifted delivery mechanism for its broadcast content, the program also ushered in appointment listening, a key innovation and disruption in the emerging chaotic attention economy of the 21st century. Empathy Machines centers This American Life as a model for prioritizing empathy as an affective and ideologicalstrategy for feeling liberal as liberal democracy’s precarious balance of opposites began to fracture into hypercapitalism, atavistic ethnonationalism, and new identity politics.