Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession
Format:Paperback
Publisher:The University of Michigan Press
Published:3rd Jun '24
Should be back in stock very soon
It has been a decade since Serial brought the narrative podcast to the center of popular culture. In that time, there has been an enormous boom in the production of podcasts that tell stories, particularly in the fields of true crime, storytelling, history, and narrative fiction. Now that the initial glow around the medium has begun to fade, it is time to reevaluate the medium’s technological, political, economic, and cultural rise, in particular what types of storytelling accompanied that rise.
Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession is the first book to look back on this prodigious body of material and attempt to make sense of it from a structural, historical, and analytical point of view. Focusing on more than 350 podcasts and other audio works released between Serial and the COVID pandemic, the book explores why so many of these podcasts seem “obsessed with obsession,” why they focus not only on informing listeners but also dramatizing the labor that goes into it, and why fiction podcasts work so hard to prove they are a brand new form, even as they revive features of radio from decades gone by. This work also examines the industry's reckoning with its own implication in systemic racism, misogyny, and other forms of discrimination. Employing innovative new critical techniques for close listening—including pitch tracking software and spectrograms—Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession makes a major contribution to podcast studies and media studies more broadly.
"If the book ‘Theatre in the Mind’ took that initial step toward a bronze age of looking at podcasts as a scholarly subject — this book takes the second, larger leap toward a golden age of podcast and audio studies. . . . From the beginning, the wealth of knowledge and interesting tidbits are abundant and constant."
-- Audio Drama Reviews"Thus, in many ways, this book is a pioneering work in guiding media students [to] critically read podcasts. In fact, the concepts proposed in this book take podcast studies beyond an exposition of storytelling modes and integrates technological, cultural, and political implications in understanding the podcast medium."
-- RadioDoc Review"Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession convincingly demonstrates how podcasts of this ilk trade on infatuation, where the hosts' fascination with even the smallest details transfers to listeners primed to find significance everywhere. Summing up: recommended. All readership levels."
-- CHOICE"Just as with podcasting, a book on the subject needs to distinguish itself from
the saturated field. In this case, the radio, audio and podcasting nerdiness that
Neil assembles is next level. . . the mind of a Neil Verma is a treasure."
"Posing a central questions that runs throughout his main chapters, Verma asks, "How should a scholar respond to a podcast, and what should a 'critical' listening consist of?" Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession compellingly (and yes, obsessively) narrates one scholar-listener's process of reaching answers to that question. Those answers have deep roots in the book's precise historical and aesthetic context and wide branches in the inventive set of perspectives Verma has applied to it."
-- Journal of Radio & Audio MISBN: 9780472055210
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
276 pages