Podcasting in Academia: A critical look at its potential and discussing a new book, Podcast Studies

The Authority File

The Authority File is no stranger to discussing podcasts. Despite the Spider-Man meme of it all, podcasting works as an effective tool to talk through the medium’s pedagogical, cultural, and academic applications. Our guests for November’s series—podcast hosts and producers themselves—are familiar with this hall of mirrors, dropping by to discuss their forthcoming edited collection, Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory.

This month, we chat with Dario Llinares, Associate Professor of Film and Media at Ravensbourne University, London, and Lori Beckstead, Associate Professor of sound media in the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, on their goal to define—or, at least, lay some parameters around—Podcast Studies. Explaining the rise of podcasting in the research community, Dario and Lori explore how podcasts can both reject and fall within academia’s traditional guardrails for scholarship. Further, they dig into the personal touch of using one’s voice to discuss research, how faculty use podcasts in the classroom, and the accessibility of the medium.

In the first episode of this four-part series, Dario and Lori trace their paths to editing Podcast Studies and becoming podcasters. In addition, they outline the book’s objectives to characterize the Podcast Studies discipline, highlight podcasts’ academic and non-academic uses, and include diverse, global perspectives and methodologies. Last, our guests reflect on the process of gathering the book chapters and their intent to invert the “Theory into Practice” phrase commonly seen on monographs in the book title.

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