Ask a Ninja: What is Podcasting?
Okay, that was the intro (to either hook you, get that song stuck in your head, or annoy you to no end) and now we are going to talk intelligently. As seen in class last Wednesday, the popularity of radio has gone down…way down, almost as if it is this archaic technology that should have been thrown away with cassette tapes. Afterall, here in this city, there really is not much to choose from if you do not like adult contemporary, Nickelback, hip hop, or the eclectic mix that the university puts out. Plus, let’s face it, CBC is not always as riveting as intellectuals would like to think. So what is a person to do? Disown radio and make sure you have a stack of CDs in your car so large that you will never ever get tired of them? That is what I did. However, now you can plug in your iPod (or iPhone 
) to your iTrip and listen to a whole new kind of radio…
Only it is not called radio…
PODCASTS!!!
Unlike what the Ninja told you, podcasts are files that you can download (and quite a few are free) and then you can experience them. I say experience because they come in audio form, like radio shows, or video form, like TV shows, or – according to the Apple store – even iPod game downloads that fall into the podcast category. More to my point, the pioneer podcasts (and when I say that, I mean like 2003ish) were audio and people still listen to them today. Every week my friend downloads the CBC Radio 3 podcast, sticks it on his iPod, and listens to it until he knows the words to every single song.
So why would people listen to audio podcasts when they have dropped radio from their “fun” lists? For one, podcasts can be matched to an individual’s interests – just like we were talking about how people pick their favourite TV shows and websites and the media is vast enough for everyone to only take in what they like. Right now I am subscribed to AudioDharma, a Buddhist lecture series, Learn French Podcast, and Fox’s O.C. podcast (summaries of the episodes incase I miss them). The choices go on forever.
However, I believe that the most important quality of podcasts is that they are not bound to time like radio. I cannot count the times that I have decided to give radio a chance and switched it on while I was driving only to catch the tail end of a good show or to miss something interesting completely, therefore being left with classical music or advertising. In Ch.12 of the text, it talks about the hysteria caused by the reading of War of the Worlds over the radio, well just think how much that would have been avoided if everyone had been listening from the beginning or made the conscious decision to listen to something titled “War of the Worlds – Fictional Novel” (however, the text’s mention of perceptual selection is not to be overlooked, some people may always only hear what they want). Audio Podcasts are radio when you want it, just like Youtube and video podcasts are TV when you want it. In the rush of our current society, no one has the time to sit around waiting for a good show, we all have the need to control what we do and when.
There are, of course, implications to this new technology. Whereas radio is free and accessible to most people, podcasts require that you have a computer and an internet connection at the very least, if you want to listen to them outside of your home you also need an iPod or a laptop and if you want to listen to that in your car…well there is another $60 bucks. So it seems that those who cannot afford these luxeries, like me, must still deal with the dilemma of radio. But is it not somewhat comforting to know that the tradition of oral myths and information transfer is not dead and that when you do start making money, there is an amazing technological alternative?
Oh, and almost anyone can make a podcast, just like Youtube videos, therefore big media owners like CanWest cannot monopolize the podcasts Canadians listen to. I am not trying to make this sound like the best technology on earth though, let me know what you think of it and if you can see other downsides to this phenomenon of podcasting.
