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Podcasting: Genre-Defining Or Mired In Medium?

Podcasting often gets compared to other forms of media, like TV, radio, or even blogging. But podcasting is messy and tends to spill out of any box that tries to contain it. Is that its superpower or its Achilles heel?

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I was watching a comedy special at the end of last week where I heard one of the comedians say a rather poignant thing that I can’t shake out of my head. His statement led me to ask a foundational question about podcasting that seems to change shape depending on how you look at it.

The comedian talked about comedy as a genre. Not an industry. Not a business. But as a genre. A genre that provided him quite a good life, in his case. But in my head, I kept pondering the question: Is comedy a genre?

I get that comedy is the underlying thread that ties standup comedians to comedic actors in movies. It’s the common thread that ties together the writing room of a sitcom as well as those who’ve made a career writing not just funny songs, but only funny songs.

So yes, I think comedy is a genre. But is podcasting?

Podcasting As A Medium

I mostly view podcasting through a medium-shaped lens. All arguments about “what makes a podcast a podcast” eventually come down to the mechanics of media files distributed via RSS feeds. That definition clearly says that podcasting is a medium, since none of the words used speak to the content. 

Using that paradigm, we can think of radio as strictly a medium by which radio waves are transmitted through the air to the device that receives it. But as with the podcasting definition, that says nothing about the content transmitted via that medium.

In both cases, it’s up to creators to figure out what to send out over the medium. A group excluded from the definitions. 

When I got into podcasting back in 2004, it was as a creator. But I very quickly transitioned to becoming more of a facilitator. Even today, I’m still clearly a creator of content, but most of my contributions to podcasting remain on the facilitation side, which skews my perspective.

Podcasting As A Genre

Can podcasting carve out its own genre? Has it already carved out its own genre and it’s just that “olds” like me missed it?

The similarities between comedy and podcasting break down when you look at it in reverse. While it’s easy to see comedy as a genre, it’s a lot harder to define it as a medium. Yes, you could make an argument that comedy can be used as a way to get your points across, and that might define it as a medium. But I’m not sure I could defend that line of thinking for too long. 

To really hold onto the notion that podcasting is its own genera, two things need to be true. First, there needs to be enough differentiation between content provided via podcast and other similar mediums. Second, there needs to be enough similarity between content provided within podcasting itself.

That second part is tricky. I have argued on this program that there's not a lot of overlap between the content put out by full-cast audio drama producers and a series of business-focused interviews. Yes, there’s some technology overlap, but I’m not convinced there’s a lot of commonality in the content. 

But I go back to comedy. Is there a big difference between what's happening at a standup comedian and what's happening in the writing room of a television show? Does the creation process of being a clown overlap with what it takes to write humor books? It likely depends on your perspective.

Podcasting As A Perspective-Shifter

I realize most podcasters probably don’t struggle with this question. Which means you likely have an opinion of where podcasting fits, either as a genre or a medium. Sometimes I wish I had that level of clarity and conviction. 

My struggles to pack podcasting neatly into a box have always lead me to be the voice of opposition anytime people are trying to organize a group to represent the needs of podcasters. Part of that is a reflex that comes with the job of being a professional contrarian. Anytime the crowd is surging in one direction, I’m compelled to look at the opposite or alternate routes.

Does the medium of podcasting need organization? Maybe. If seen as a genre, would the people crafting that genre benefit from organizing? I’m not sure, and I don’t want this article to dig into that right now. I want to keep it at a higher level. 

If there's a message in my madness and messiness of this article, it’s this: some questions don't have single answers everyone agrees to.

And that's okay. 

Rather than try to put all of podcasting into a single box, maybe it’s better to just choose your perspective. And then maybe change that from time to time? I’m clearly medium-minded when it comes to podcasting. Perhaps I should work harder at being genre-minded, at least from time to time?

What Podcasters Can Do During The Lockdown

While we’re on lockdown, can I encourage you to increase your R-naught value? No, not by being irresponsible when it comes to public health, but in spreading Podcast Pontifications! I can’t stress enough how much it matters when you tell one person -- just one person -- who is also a podcaster about this show. It makes a huge difference.

You’ve also seen some mixed messages on when we might get out of this mess. Until that happens, I still want to share stories from podcasters just like you. So please, record some audio and send me a link to evo@podcastlaunch.pro.

I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications. 

Cheers!


Published On:
April 20, 2020
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PP297 - Podcasting: Genre-Defining Or Mired In Medium?

Evo Terra: [00:00:00] Podcasting often gets compared to other forms of media like TV, radio, or even blogging, but podcasting is messy and tends to spill out of any box you try to put it in now is that it's super power or it's Achilles heel.

[00:00:21] Hello, and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me Evo. Tara. Sorry. I was watching a comedy special at the end of last weekend. One of the comedians said some pretty poignant things that really has my mind going down that particular path. It's a path that my mind has gone down quite a bit, and that's the question of what is this thing we call podcasting, and we're going to deal with that a little bit today.

[00:00:53] Hey, you're on the program. As I try and work through this big question about what podcasting is, and specifically what the comedian was talking about is he said that he kept talking about comedy as his genre, the genre that he's chosen to be and give him a great life and all this various stuff. Great.

[00:01:08] But it's a genre of comedy, and I was puzzling around that concept is, you know, is, is comedy genre, and this was a standup comedian. But I think it is, which is a good news. But you know, I'm thinking about comedy movies. I'm thinking about comedy and in comedy, writing for TV, um, people who write funny songs and, and, uh, all the other aspects of comedy and, and clowns and his comedy media, or a genre.

[00:01:40] And clearly it is. So that's got me thinking in the podcasting space. Because you're saying, I think I have always leaned on podcasting as a medium, and that's kind of the way that it is defined already. Podcasting as simply the dissemination of media files with RSS feeds, it's a medium. Then you can think of radio as a medium.

[00:02:05] Radio waves transmit through the air and TV as a medium in that the device where the content gets down to consume to it. Those certainly are mediums, but I'm thinking back to podcasting is podcasting itself as genre or a medium? And again, my head has always been, it's a medium. It's up to creators to figure out what to do with it.

[00:02:29] Well, that's gotten me to thinking maybe that's the challenge. Maybe creators of podcasts. Think about things vastly different than facilitators of podcasting. And while I got into podcasting originally as a creator, I quickly transitioned to becoming a facilitator, still do and co obviously here I am today, still creating content, but for a long time, most of my contributions of podcasting were on the facilitation sides.

[00:03:02] Wait, I put out more. I think I did more good and work and things in podcasting in facilitation than I did actually in creating. And what is isn't really important.

[00:03:14] So is podcasting genre defined it? Can we do we do enough unique things in the podcasting space to say, that's a podcast. You could look at a comedian and say that he's doing comedy. You can watch a really funny TV show and say, that's comedy. We can define all these things around that genre of comedy, and of course, comedy is not a medium.

[00:03:36] There's no way to get that out. You could have an argument that you're trying to get your points across in the medium of comedy, but not what I'm talking about here is podcasting like that. Do we do enough things differently in podcasting to set us apart from the other ones to where we can say podcasting itself is a genre.

[00:03:58] Now we have a lot of different sub genres in there. I have argued on this program that there's not a lot of overlap between full cast audio drama producers and say, for example, a business series of interviews, vastly different things all going across the same medium of podcasting. They're audio files that are transmitted down to UVN RSS feed.

[00:04:26] Yay. But I didn't think there was a lot of commonality in the content. And I don't necessarily think that I, I don't, I'm not sure. I still don't think that how many double negatives was that. But I go back to looking at the genre question of podcasting and compare that to something like comedy, big difference between what's happening at a standup comedian and what's happening in a television show.

[00:04:55] Or a funny book or a clown at a party, if that's even comedy. Maybe just more entertainment. I dunno. So, yeah. So I'm kind of wondering about where it fits and as you can see, I don't really have an answer for the question. Is it a genre in and of itself, or is it a medium? I think it's clearly a medium.

[00:05:14] That's an easy answer. It's whether or not we can. Carve out something for a genre. This is one of this, this question, and clearly you might have an an answer in your head automatically and are puzzled why I don't, but I don't, and I haven't for 16 years. This is why I have always struggled when we collectively as a group have tried to do things around organization because there had been a lot of different organizations that try to represent the needs of podcasters.

[00:05:47] And I've been resistant to that. Partly I feel like I should be resistant to a system anytime. There's a huge way of going. One way, you know me, it's my job as the professional contrarian to go the other direction. But I think for a large part of that, it was because I couldn't get past the podcasting is more medium than it is genre question and we don't need it.

[00:06:07] We don't necessarily need that organization for the medium. Maybe we do for the creating side of things. Maybe it's even more complicated on the creating side. We get this. So that's why this isn't a question about whether or not we should have professional organizations. I think those make a lot of sense, but do, is there an opportunity for one group of people to represent.

[00:06:29] The genre of podcasts and there's not a, and there's a comedy writers association. There's, you know, there's lots of organizations that get in the comedy, but there's not one that tried to cover it as podcast or comedy overall. So maybe that's what's causing my brain not to understand the true value of these large organizations.

[00:06:46] I just don't know

[00:06:50] if there's a message, I guess that, excuse me to come out of this show, is that that some of these questions don't have answers. And I think that's okay. Maybe that's one of the benefits of this. Yeah. Unboxing awful thing we call podcasting is that it constantly comes up with new edge cases and maybe not even edge cases, maybe enough cases to where it's just really hard to put this in a box.

[00:07:14] I just don't know. I'm not sure what the right answer is. I'm not even sure we need a right, a right answer out of that. It's just this question. And maybe it's maybe it's all about approach. Maybe it's all about a personal approach. Are you the genre minded person or are you the medium minded person? I think I'm the medium minded person, but maybe I want to be the genre minded person.

[00:07:41] I dunno. Things to think about while you're sitting here doing with the lockdown. Hey, two things on that lockdown when we're talking about it. One, how about you can, um, increase your, are or not value, not of spreading the virus. Hopefully better spreading this show podcast. Pontifications what'd you tell one person who is a podcaster to follow the show?

[00:08:01] It makes a huge difference. If you just tell one person right now about this show, that would be, that'd be really, really awesome. And speaking of lockdown. And the lockdown ending, possibly those mixed messages. This was a mixed message show. My goodness. I want to hear from you about how the pandemic is affecting you as a podcaster.

[00:08:20] Send me stories of woe. Send me stories of success, whatever you figuring out something new with podcasting because of the lockdown. I want to hear that story. Sending me an email please. evo@podcastlaunched.pro. And I shall be back to Morrow with yet another podcast. Pontifications cheers.

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