Podcastia: Imagining Communities of Pod-People

Abstract

While podcasting has become a valuable advertising tool for many companies, it has also become a major way in which geographically spread out communities have been able to stay connected. Podcasts, like many other new Internet genres, are thought to be listened to mainly by an affluent audience who create podcast themselves. By looking at the various institutional and production issues and audiences of the podcast medium, this chapter will show how this genre works to create and sustain mass communities of “prosumers” and mobile audiences. Also, this chapter will historically contextualize the podcast by showing ways in which it is not simply a reiteration of earlier technologies, but also a distinct new medium with a unique, prosumer-friendly mode of transmission and reception.