The Power of Podcasting: Telling Stories Through Sound - Softcover

McHugh, Siobhàn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0231208774 ISBN 13: 9780231208772

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2022

Synopsis

Now two decades old, podcasting is an exuberant medium where new voices can be found every day. As a powerful communications tool that is largely unregulated and unusually accessible, this influential medium is attracting scholarly scrutiny across a range of fields, from media and communications to history, criminology, and gender studies. Hailed for intimacy and authenticity in an age of mistrust and disinformation, podcasts have developed fresh models for storytelling, entertainment, and the casual imparting of knowledge. Podcast hosts have forged strong parasocial relationships that attract advertisers, brands, and major platforms, but can also be leveraged for community, niche, and public-interest purposes.

In The Power of Podcasting, award-winning narrative podcast producer and leading international audio scholar Siobhán McHugh dissects the aesthetics and appeal of podcasts and reveals the remarkable power of the audio medium to build empathy and connection via voice and sound. Drawing on internationally acclaimed podcasts she helped produce (The Greatest Menace, The Last Voyage of the Pong Su, Phoebe’s Fall), she blends practical insights into making complex narrative podcasts and chatcasts or conversational shows with critical analysis of the art and history of audio storytelling. She also surveys the emerging canon of podcast formats. Grounded in concepts from the affective power of voice to the choreography of sound and packed with case studies and insider tips from McHugh’s decades of experience, this richly storied book immerses readers in the enthralling possibilities of the world of sound.

About this title

About the Author

Siobhán McHugh is an award-winning writer, documentary maker, critic, and podcast producer. She has won seven gold awards at New York Festivals for coproduced podcasts including Phoebe’s Fall, Wrong Skin, and The Last Voyage of the Pong Su, and is consulting producer on The Greatest Menace, a queer true-crime podcast. McHugh has published four books of social history, including The Snowy: A History (2019). She is honorary associate professor in media and communications at the University of Sydney and honorary associate professor in journalism at the University of Wollongong.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231208774
• ISBN 13: 9780231208772
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320