Overview

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.

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Reviews

Podcast Journalism offers a thorough study of podcasts as commerce, as culture, and as a sometimes-controversial auditory turn in journalism. Extensive detail centers this robust discussion, with Dowling giving space to explore what podcasts’ emergence has meant for how we situate narrative journalism in our ears, and within our worlds. -- Scott A. Eldridge II, University of Groningen For all the chatter about the rapid rise of podcasting, David O. Dowling makes a powerful case that we’ve underestimated the medium’s impact on journalism. Will serious, narrative podcast journalism be allowed to flourish, perhaps helping to save our democracy, or will profit seekers snuff out its promise? -- John Biewen, host and producer, <i>Scene on Radio</i> podcast This book provides the definitive accounting of the most revolutionary and exciting new forms of digital media—podcasting. Dowling deftly reveals how podcast journalism is an antidote for our fragmented attention economy, one saturated with clickbait, soundbite, and algorithmically-curated encounters with news and storytelling. Dowling’s richly textured account is a powerful reminder that the same social, cultural, and industry incentives that have undermined journalism’s democratic potential also threaten podcasting -a janus-faced future for journalism where the revolutionary potential for journalism to give voice to marginalized groups seeking justice and community is juxtaposed against true crime sensationalism and the rebirth of audio-driven far-right conspiracy mongering. -- Nikki Usher, author of <i>News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism</i>

For all the chatter about the rapid rise of podcasting, David O. Dowling makes a powerful case that we’ve underestimated the medium’s impact on journalism. Will serious, narrative podcast journalism be allowed to flourish, perhaps helping to save our democracy, or will profit seekers snuff out its promise? -- John Biewen, host and producer, <i>Scene on Radio</i> podcast Podcast Journalism offers a thorough study of podcasts as commerce, as culture, and as a sometimes-controversial auditory turn in journalism. Extensive detail centers this robust discussion, with Dowling giving space to explore what podcasts’ emergence has meant for how we situate narrative journalism in our ears and within our worlds. -- Scott A. Eldridge II, author of <i>Online Journalism from the Periphery: Interloper Media and the Journalistic Field</i> Dowling’s Podcast Journalism is the first comprehensive book to engage critically with both the opportunities and the risks associated with audio storytelling packaged in such a seductive and engaging way. This is an essential read in the age of podcasting. -- Mia Lindgren, coeditor of <i>The Routledge Companion to Radio and Podcast Studies</i> This book provides the definitive account of the most revolutionary and exciting new form of digital media—podcasting. Dowling’s richly textured book is a powerful reminder that the same social, cultural, and industry incentives that have undermined journalism’s democratic potential also threaten podcasting—showing us a Janus-faced future where the revolutionary potential to give voice to marginalized groups seeking justice and community is juxtaposed against true-crime sensationalism and the rebirth of audio-driven far-right conspiracy mongering. -- Nikki Usher, author of <i>News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism</i>

Author Information

David O. Dowling is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. He is the author of several books, including Immersive Longform Storytelling: Media, Technology, Audience (2019) and The Gamification of Digital Journalism: Innovation in Journalistic Storytelling (2021).

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