Podcasts and the (re)emergence of audio storytelling
With the creation of language, stories were told orally, making audio a storytelling medium. With the recent resurgence of audio storytelling through the increasing popularity of podcasts, we haven’t so much created a new medium, as evolved the natural continuation of a tradition which spans aeons.
The main reason for the current success of podcasts is its portability and ease of accessibility. Many of us already carry the devices necessary to access them, echoing Marshall McLuhan’s view that media is an extension of ourselves. We can instantly stream any podcast from almost anywhere. And the typical podcast is relatively bite-sized, perfect for our busy lives and attention spans that are apparently now shorter than a goldfish. Though if we’re really obsessed with a particular podcast, we can mainline it. I recently did this with the non-fiction scary story Lore podcast, listening to three years of episodes in about a month (67x30 mins — yes I know that’s a bit much, but when I like something, I like it a lot).
Another reason for the recent success and proliferation of podcasts is the relative ease of production compared to video. You can publish a podcast without going to a broadcaster, unlike traditional media. It allows the creation of content that otherwise would be too expensive to produce on video. On the hybrid drama/documentary series Hostile Worlds, for example, the crew/hosts fly their spaceship to various alien planets, which they then explore while describing — with scientific accuracy — what it would be like to actually visit the planets. As one host points out early on, they’re only able to do this because it’s audio.
Podcasts also fill a gap that was previously empty — where before you’d be simply driving, walking, exercising, or shopping, now you can simultaneously consume content, even while completing the most mundane tasks. Podcasts allow for regular content creation, and for consumers to temporarily satisfy their unquenchable thirst for a particular story world. Podcasts fill that previously vacant niche, but it doesn’t necessarily replace other types of media, rather, it complements them.
One of the most effective uses of podcasting is through transmedia storytelling, where individual stories are created and intended to stand alone, but take place in the same world, allowing fans to maintain their focus on the one property. As Henry Jenkins (Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California) explains, “[c]onsumers become hunters and gatherers moving back across the various narratives trying to stitch together a coherent picture from the dispersed information.” Though currently most podcasts are not based on established properties, Marvel’s recent Wolverine: The Long Night is a perfect example of the medium’s potential as it’s a story that expands on part of Wolverine’s unexplored backstory, and in an unusual style for the franchise — as a dark detective thriller where Wolverine is in the background.
Podcasts are already hugely popular and are still growing — according to a 2018 study by Edison Research, 44% of Americans 12 years old and older have listened to one, up 4% from the previous year. The medium will likely become more important in the future as we learn to harness its potential to tell stories that are deeper, more satisfying, and bring our global village closer together. As Aaron Mahnke, the creator/host of Lore, put it, “As kids, we would go sit around the campfire… [a]nd now, the light is the light of a phone, and people are seated everywhere around the world.”
