A New Form of Media

By Sarah Westrick | Published October 21, 2019

    Podcasts are a uniquely 21st century development whose basic concepts have been around for over 100 years. As Mark Frary points out in “The Power to Podcast”, their impact and significant advantages over other forms of media cannot be overlooked. But what are the drawbacks we aren’t talking about?

    We might not think about this so often in the United States, but in countries with strict censorship laws, podcasts can act as an underground medium for disseminating information. For starters, podcasts do not require much equipment to create, and recording on a smartphone is much less apparent setting up a large radio transmitter and broadcasting over closely monitored airways. 

    Podcasters can also preserve their identities more easily than they could over the radio, with the ability to use encrypted emails, USB flash drives, or posting over a private network in order to avoid detection. 

    In areas where free speech is guaranteed however, podcasters still have the advantage of not having to be green-lit first by a news or radio network. Amateurs can start creating and build up their base with the Internet as an even playing field, like producers Christopher Farai Charamba and Tawanda Henry Biti, who started the show “Politics and Beyond” in Zimbabwe by simply sitting down and recording. 

    Podcasts are without a doubt a positive development for the news word or mediaverse, but this is not to say that they are the “best” forum available for every situation or that they come without drawbacks. The most obvious is that in order to hear a podcast, the listener must have access to the internet or a physical copy of the recording. 

    What’s more, even if a listener does have the ability to use the internet, older generations are less likely to utilize that privilege, or to know where to go to find such digital media. This limits the demographic that will receive your work. 

    As well, podcasts have the same issue as radio in that they rely on the human voice to captivate the audience. In print articles, readers can skim for information they want, but this is much more difficult to do over audio. Without command of voice, listeners may become bored and stop listening. 

    As We Edit Podcasts states, the relaxed ability to create is beneficial but not without consequence. Podcasters have to hold themselves accountable for keeping up with a scheduled show and this can be difficult without a team or the resources that a radio station would have. 

As well, podcasts can make their creators money, but this monetization is completely up to that creator, and sometimes the inclusion of ads can anger listeners who were drawn to podcasts because they disliked the corporate feel of other platforms. 

Overall, podcasts, for now, are here to stay, and offer alternatives to traditional radio and print that come with both unique benefits and drawbacks.