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.

Starting from the observation of the ubiquity of fan podcasts engaging in media commentary, this book explores three fan podcast genres in which commentary manifests as a structuring form: rewatch and reread podcasts, recap podcasts, and review podcasts. The author conducts a formalist genre analysis of these podcasts, close reading nine case studies to describe how the three genres function and how different fan labour manifests in podcasting. Each case study teases out the themes, style, and formal constellations of the three podcast genres, shows how different fans activate the affordances of podcasting and commentary, and reveals the distinct generic functions of the three podcast genres. This book will be of significant interest to scholars and students in podcast studies, fan studies, cultural studies and literary studies who are interested in fan podcasts, podcast genre analysis, and ways of close reading podcasts as texts.

At a time when the traditional media have been reshaped by digital technologies and audiences have fragmented, people are using mediated forms of communication to manage all aspects of their daily lives as well as for news and entertainment. The Media and Communications in Australia offers a systematic introduction to this dynamic field. Fully updated and expanded, this fifth edition outlines the key media industries – from print, sound and television to film, gaming and public relations – and explains how communications technologies have changed the ways in which they now operate. It offers an overview of the key approaches to the field, including a consideration of Indigenous communication, and features a ‘hot topics’ section with contributions on issues including diversity, misinformation, algorithms, COVID-19, web series and national security. With chapters from Australia’s leading researchers and teachers in the field, The Media and Communications in Australia remains the most comprehensive and reliable introduction to media and communications from an Australian perspective. It is an ideal student text and a key resource for teachers, lecturers, media practitioners and anyone interested in understanding these influential industries.

This cutting-edge textbook examines contemporary media business models in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital transformation. AI has dramatically impacted media production and distribution, from recommendation engines to synthetic humans, from video-to-text tools to natural language models. "AI is really the change agent of the media industry," answered a natural language generation model when AI was ‘asked’ about the subject of this book. "It will open incredible opportunities." This book seeks to explore them. The media is examined through four sections. ‘Principles’ maps business models and the key tools of AI. ‘Platforms’ covers distribution channels in Games, Streamers, Social Networks, Broadcast and Digital Publishing. ‘Producers’ covers the engines of content-making, including Scripted, Entertainment, Factual, Content Marketing, Creators and Music. Finally, ‘Pioneers’ covers emerging sectors of Podcasting, Esports, the Metaverse and other AI-driven developments. Then in each chapter, a standard value creation model is applied, mapping a single sector through development, production, distribution and monetisation. Diverse case studies are analysed from India, Nigeria, South Korea, South Africa, France, the Netherlands, the US, the UK, Denmark and China – around creative entrepreneurship, revenue models, profit drivers, rights and emerging AI tools. Questions are provided for each case, whilst chapter summaries cement learning. Applied and technology-focused, this text offers core reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduates studying Media Management – or the relationship between Entertainment, Media and Technology. Online resources include chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint slides and an Instructor’s Manual with further exercises and case studies.

Podcasting burst onto the media landscape in the early 2000s. At the time, there were hopes it might usher in a new wave of amateur and professional cultural production and represent an alternate model for how to produce, share, circulate and experience new voices and perspectives. Twenty years later, podcasting is at a critical juncture in its young history: a moment where the early ideals of open standards and platform-neutral distribution are giving way to services that prioritize lean-back listening and monetizable media experiences. This book provides an accessible and comprehensive account of one of digital media’s most vibrant formats. Focusing on the historical changes shaping podcasts as a media format, the book explores the industrial, technological and cultural components of podcasting alongside case studies of various podcasts, industry publications, and streaming audio platforms (e.g. Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts). Jeremy Morris argues that as streaming platforms push to make podcasting more industrialized, accessible, user-friendly and similar to other audio media like music or audiobooks, they threaten podcasting’s early, though always unrealized, promises. This is the go-to introduction for students and researchers of media, communication and cultural studies, as well as readers who enjoy making and listening to podcasts.

Building an audience is tough. Do you work hard to create the best possible content for your target audience? Do you continually wonder why your download numbers remain so flat and... unspectacular? It has always been a challenge to grow a sizable and dedicated audience around content creation. There's a lot more to it than saying, "build it and they will come". And, as new podcasts are launched each day, the space will only continue to get noisier. The competition gets stiffer. Fortunately, you don't need to worry about all the other podcasts out there. You only need to worry about your own. In Podcast Growth, you'll have the ultimate manual for promoting your show, and growing your audience.T his book pulls together our favourite tips and tactics for podcast growth, based on over a decade of professional experience. We break them down into actionable strategies. You can work through them in order, or cherry-pick the ones that suit your content and brand the most. You'll find details on timeframes, checklists, and recommended resources, to keep you moving forward. You'll see those download numbers begin to climb. Your long-awaited engagement will start to increase.If you want to grow your podcast audience, then this is the only book you need. So, let's grow!The Podcast Host is a podcast marketing hub for individuals and businesses who seek to nurture an audience, build trust, and grow revenue through their show or their products. The website was founded in 2010 by Dr. Colin Gray, and has become an authority in the new media space through writing, podcasting, and broadcasting on anything that serves to create loyal and fanatical fans.

A deeply personal call to action for women of color to find power from within and to join together in community, advocating for a new corporate environment where we all belong—and are accepted—on our own terms. Women of color comprise one of the fastest-growing segments in the corporate workforce, yet often we are underrepresented—among the first, few, or only ones in a department or company. For too long, corporate structures, social zeitgeist, and cultural conditioning have left us feeling exhausted and downtrodden, believing that in order to “fit in” and be successful, we must hide or change who we are. As a former senior partner at a large global services firm, Deepa Purushothaman experienced these feelings of isolation and burnout. She met with hundreds of other women of color across industries and cultural backgrounds, eager to hear about their unique and shared experiences. In doing so, she has come to understand our collective setbacks—and the path forward in achieving our goals. Business must evolve—and women of color have the potential to lead that transformation. We must begin by pushing back against toxic messaging—including the things we tell ourselves—while embracing the valuable cultural viewpoints and experiences that give us unique perspectives at work. By fully realizing our own strengths, we can build collective power and use it to confront microaggressions, outdated norms, and workplace misconceptions; create cultures where belonging is never conditional; and rework corporations to be genuinely inclusive to all. The First, the Few, the Only is a road map for us to make a profound impact within and outside our organizations while ensuring that our words are heard, our lived experiences are respected, and our contributions are finally valued.

Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of academic research exploring the definition, status, practices and implications of podcasting through a Media and Cultural Studies lens. By bringing together research from experienced and early career academics alongside audio and creative practitioners, the chapters in this volume span a range of approaches in a timely reaction to podcasting’s zeitgeist moment. In conceptualizing the podcast, the contributors examine its liminal status between the mechanics of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media and between differing production contexts, in addition to podcasting’s reliance on mainstream industrial structures whilst retaining an alternative, even outsider, sensibility. In the present tumult of online media discourse, the contributors frame podcasting as indicative of a ‘new aural culture’ emerging from an identifiable set of industrial, technological and cultural circumstances. The analyses in this collection offer a range of interpretations which begin to open avenues for further research into a distinct Podcast Studies.

Podcasting’s stratospheric rise has inspired a new breed of audio reporting. Offering immersive storytelling for a binge-listening audience as well as reaching previously underserved communities, podcasts have become journalism’s most rapidly growing digital genre, buoying a beleaguered news industry. Yet many concerns have been raised about this new medium, such as the potential for disinformation, the influence of sponsors on content, the dominance of a few publishers and platforms, and at-times questionable adherence to journalistic principles. David O. Dowling critically examines how podcasting and its evolving conventions are transforming reporting—and even reshaping journalism’s core functions and identity. He considers podcast reporting’s most influential achievements as well as its most consequential ethical and journalistic shortcomings, emphasizing the reciprocal influences between podcasting and traditional and digital journalism. Podcasting, both as a medium and a business, has benefited from the blurring of boundaries separating news from entertainment, editorial from advertising, and neutrality from subjectivity. The same qualities and forces that have allowed podcasting to bypass the limitations of traditional categories, expand the space of social and political discourse, and provide openings for marginalized voices have also permitted corporations to extend their reach and far-right firebrands to increase their influence. Equally attentive to the medium’s strengths and flaws, this is a vital book for all readers interested in how podcasting has changed journalism.

Born 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.