Audio Storytelling Research Articles

The 360 diary method in experiential education: using social media as a complementary method to interviews and audio diaries

Although social media platforms with visual and audio storytelling features can provide rich qualitative data that offers deep insight into forms of outdoor experiential education, particularly for college-aged participants, few studies have investigated its potential in this field. This paper aims to extend understandings of social media research by drawing on a phenomenological study that employed the 360 Diary Method – an approach combining more ‘traditional’ qualitative approaches (interviews and audio diaries) with social media (Instagram and TikTok) – to explore the experiences of four college students who backpacked over 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail together. By comparing themes from multiple forms of qualitative data, findings show how Instagram and TikTok generate new understandings while texturizing what is shared verbally in audio diaries and interviews. Findings also highlight emerging theoretical and epistemological tensions when using social media in research due to its orientation towards performativity. This study concludes that in the digital age, utilising social media as a data source remains valuable but may be best employed in conjunction with other complementary qualitative methods to investigate the multi-layered nature of participant experiences in outdoor settings.

Translating Radio Productions into Television Programmes: The Post-War Career of BBC Writer/Producer Nesta Pain

When BBC Television resumed broadcasting in 1946, BBC radio still dominated the airwaves. However, within a decade, television had swiftly become the dominant medium. BBC radio producers from the Features Department were eager to try their hand at translating their audio productions into visual ones, although few were successful. BBC producer Nesta Pain ultimately remained in radio production, but she successfully translated some of her radio plays and productions into television programmes, including John Mortimer’s The Dock Brief (1957), A Shaft of Light (1958), and Simon Raven’s The Move Up Country (1961). As one of the few women, and one of the more successful BBC Features writer/producers of the 1940s and 1950s, Nesta Pain’s approaches to translating her work to television and the obstacles she encountered trying to move from audio storytelling to a more visual media offers a glimpse into the difficulties radio producers faced in switching to new methods. This article discusses the successful, as well as challenging, moments she faced in attempting this transition and also explores how access to Pain’s personal papers has greatly enhanced this understanding.

Nigeria's Untold Stories at a Moment of Change: An interview with audio storyteller FayFay

Odudu Efe, known as FayFay, is a Lagos-based audio producer and sound designer and also the founder of NaijaPod Hub, a network dedicated to supporting audio producers and promoting high quality audio storytelling in Nigeria. This interview with FayFay shows how her career in many ways reflects the challenges and promise of Nigerian audio storytelling at this moment in time. Like many freelancers, she takes on branding and imaging, tidies up sound and produces studio-based talk podcasts. But increasingly she’s being commissioned to work on complex historical documentaries and documentary-dramas. And this for FayFay is key, because like others in her field, she now wants to tell Nigerian stories that have too long gone untold – or too long been told by outsiders – and she wants to tell them in creative and absorbing ways that ‘chatcasts’ cannot satisfy. FayFay’s work draws on globally recognisable documentary conventions but also incorporates Nigerian TV and film sound tropes, in what might prove to be an emerging Nigerian audio-documentary style. She remains frustrated by the tendency for so many in the media to hide away in studios, when a roving microphone in the hands of a greater range of people might better capture the richness of lived experience in this hyper-diverse country.

Introduction: Audio Storytelling and the Global South

The Editors introduce this special tenth anniversary issue of RadioDoc Review, dedicated to listening to the Global South.

Audio

Audio

From Niche Narrative to Audio Blockbusters

From Niche Narrative to Audio Blockbusters

Time to Document

In recent years, Björk has defied pop music criticism’s persistent myth of male genius by asserting her authorship as a singer, songwriter, composer, and producer. She expressed these concerns during a 2015 Pitchfork interview with Jessica Hopper by reflecting on the press’s minimization of her production work throughout her career and her desire to reclaim her creative authority as a model for younger female-identified artists. During this portion of the conversation, she mused, “I’ve sometimes thought about releasing a map of all my albums and just making it clear who did what.” Her impulse to challenge masculinist creation myths through documentation became the catalyst for Björk: Sonic Symbolism, a 2022 podcast miniseries sponsored by Mailchimp in which she discussed her albums’ creative processes with friends Oddný Eir and Ásmundur Jónson in a series of interviews. The title, which Björk defines as “a visual shortcut to describe sound,” provides the podcast’s framework for her articulation of authorial control, which she examines through album art that illustrates each cover’s mood and character; poetic synopses of each album’s unique audiovisual language; and references to her various studio, video, and stage collaborators. By using close listening to examine Björk’s conversations with Eir and Jónson and the episodes’ illustrative song segments, this article posits that Björk’s engagement with podcasting as an audio storytelling medium allows her to foreground her distinct speaking and singing voice as both a feminist intervention upon the recording industry and as a sonic metaphor for authorial control.

“We can do better. We can be better”: counter-narratives in true crime podcasts on domestic violence

ABSTRACT Through three qualitative interviews with journalists who have produced and hosted true crime podcasts about domestic violence cases, this study examines the reciprocal interactions hosts can have with domestic violence survivors in their audiences. Also of significance is how these journalist-podcasters are working with their audience members to present counter-narratives that challenge the traditional media practice of silencing survivors, victims, and their loved ones. Building upon the interviews, a textual analysis of 43 episodes demonstrates how journalist-podcasters foreground stories of victims and advocacy for societal change to offer audiences a counter-narrative. In doing so, they generate awareness while simultaneously empowering victims to seek assistance and shed the stigma of shame that is prevalent in our society. These findings demonstrate the power of a reciprocal relationship between media producers and their audiences, specifically related to crime media coverage. This study demonstrates how true crime podcasters leverage audio storytelling to educate listeners and encourage systemic and societal change for survivors of domestic violence.

Evaluating Similarity Variables for Peer Matching in Digital Health Storytelling

Peer matching can enhance the impact of social health technologies. By matching similar peers, online health communities can optimally facilitate social modeling that supports positive health attitudes and moods. However, little work has examined how to operationalize similarities in digital health tools, thus limiting our ability to perform optimal peer matching. To address this gap, we conducted a factorial experiment to examine how three categories of similarity variables (i.e., Demographic, Ability, Experiential) can be used to perform peer matching that supports the social modeling of physical activity. We focus this study on physical activity because it is a health behavior that reduces the risk of chronic diseases. We also prioritized this study for single-caregiver mothers who often face substantial barriers to being active because of immense employment and household responsibilities, especially Black single-caregiver mothers. We recruited 309 single-caregiver mothers (49% Black, 51% white), then we asked them to listen to peer audio storytelling about family physical activity. We randomly matched/mismatched the storyteller's profile using the three categories of similarity variables. Our analyses demonstrated that matching by Demographic variables led to a significantly higher Physical Activity Intention. Furthermore, our subgroup analyses indicated that Black single-caregiver mothers experienced a significant and immediate effect of peer matching in Physical Activity Intention, Self-efficacy, and mood. In contrast, white single-caregiver mothers did not report any significant immediate effect. Collectively, our data suggest that peer matching in health storytelling is potentially beneficial for racially minoritized groups; and that having diverse representations in health technology is required for promoting health equity.

Available Resources of English Story Telling on Spotify to Enhance Listening Comprehension Skills

Learning a new language encompasses various skills, including writing, reading, speaking, and listening. Developing listening comprehension abilities can be particularly challenging and requires consistent practice. An effective approach to improving listening skills is through exposure to audio storytelling. However, language learners often struggle to locate suitable content for this purpose. This study aims to identify and analyze audio storytelling resources available on the Spotify platform, specifically accessible to students. The analysis of these resources will facilitate a better understanding of their content and provide opportunities for practicing listening comprehension.The research adopts a qualitative approach, utilizing a content analysis method to evaluate the available content on Spotify. The researcher explored the platform to identify audio storytelling content and assess their potential for enhancing listening abilities. Factors such as content types, popularity, difficulty levels, and activity rates were considered during the analysis.The findings revealed three prominent channels on Spotify that specialize in audio storytelling content. These channels are popular among Spotify users, actively upload new content at least once a week, and offer content with varying difficulty levels. Each channel contains a rich collection of audio stories, encompassing grammatical and vocabulary aspects tailored to different difficulty levels, along with opportunities for exploring diverse cultures

Body genres, embodiment and engagement: Second Person in Audio Storytelling

In the article, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess” (1991), Linda Williams defines as body genres the film genres that are based on stimulating certain physical reactions in the bodies of spectators. These are fear (horror), sexual arousal (pornography), and tears (melodrama). All three genres share, “an apparent lack of proper aesthetic distance, a sense of over-involvement in sensation and emotion. We feel manipulated,” by them. The bodies of whoever watches these films are involved in an “involuntary mimicry” of the body on the screen. During a talk at the 2016 Third Coast Conference, radio producer Eleanor McDowall inquired about the equivalent of body genres in audio storytelling (radio, podcast, and other forms of audio narratives). What are those sound works that engage the bodies of their listeners, not by merely talking about bodily reactions, but by actually provoking them?

Editorial Assistant, RadioDoc Review - expression of interest

The Editorial Assistant will assist editors Dr Aasiya Lodhi and Assoc Prof Abigail Wincott, with administrative and technical issues and co-manage social media promotion of the journal. Graphic design and/or website production skills a bonus. This is an opportunity for an early career researcher and/or PhD candidate with an interest in podcast studies/audio features to become familiar with scholarship in this field and gain an understanding of contemporary audio works from around the world. RadioDoc Review was founded in 2013 to develop informed critical analysis of crafted audio storytelling works and audio features and to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and industry practice. Apply by 15 May 2023.

Developing a Digital History Project for Newport, Rhode Island: A Case Study of a Multimedia Tour and Place-Based Audio Storytelling

Abstract This case study explores the author’s use of techniques and processes associated with the digital humanities to research, create, and present a digital history project in Newport, Rhode Island. This is done by detailing and critically reflecting on the process of developing a multimedia tour and podcast episode based on the author’s original published research that investigated the role of music and social dancing during Newport’s emergence as a world-class resort in the Nineteenth Century. The multimedia tour featured in this case study makes use of digital location-based web and mobile application technologies to deliver a text and image-driven narrative with sonic enhancements augmenting the history. The podcast episode features place-based audio storytelling techniques which also enrich the understanding and potential reach of the subject. The multimedia tour and podcast episode in conjunction with the author’s original published research all work collectively to preserve Newport’s summer culture history. Some lessons learned include recognizing the advantages of utilizing established platforms, collaborating with experts, and embracing system constraints to optimize narrative focus.

Real Talk: The Power (and Limits) of Audio Storytelling in Museums

ABSTRACT The current digital age offers exciting possibilities for communicating with our audiences through recorded media to personalize the museum experience – think podcasts, immersive experiences, mobile experiences, in-gallery videos. But how should we talk to them? How can we express a cogent institutional voice and also encourage independent inquiry and fresh perspectives? Media producers Erin Fleming and Dia Felix explore best practices for audio storytelling in museums and reveal approaches to writing for the ear, establishing trust with audiences, and delivering audience-centered media that stands the test of time.

The Rise and Power of Audio Storytelling in the 21st Century: A Critical Review

The Rise and Power of Audio Storytelling in the 21st Century: A Critical Review

Audio Storytelling to Teach Listening Skill for Vocational High School

The objectives this research to know implementation of audio storytelling to teach listening skill in class tenth at SMK Negeri 2 Trenggalek. The research design qualitative research and the type is case study because this research based on phenomenon. This research used two instruments: observation sheet and interview. Observation sheet was used by the researcher to observe the teaching activity and interview was used to find in-depth information by the teacher about the use of storytelling as media in teaching activity. Observation sheet consisted of 6 statements based on techniques of teaching audio storytelling and lesson plan. The findings shows that the implementation of learning using audio story telling in listening has met the criteria expected by the researcher. In interview, researcher gave 6 questions to the teacher. The result shows that audio story telling can be implemented to teach listening skill in tenth grade at SMKN 2 Trenggalek.

Audio Storytelling Innovation in a Digital Age: The Case of Daily News Podcasts in Spain

On the 1st of February 2017, The New York Times published the first episode of ‘The Daily’, a news podcast hosted by Michael Barbaro that, five years later, has become the most popular in the world with four million listeners each day and more than 3000 million accumulated downloads. The unprecedented success of this audio format, that has emerged in a traditional newspaper, has helped to revamp radio news and has spread in various versions all over the world. This investigation analyses daily podcasts in Spain and, by means of a quantitative and qualitative study, identifies their main themes, narrative structures, and expressive contributions based on four illustrative experiences in this market: ‘Quién dice qué‘, ‘AM’, ‘El Mundo al día’, and ‘Un tema al día’. The results reveal the consolidation of two clearly defined models: a more conventional one based on radio bulletins and news reports; and another, more innovative model that replicates the anglophone formula that opts for depth, dissemination, and a conversational tone to redefine the canons of the audio news narrative and take advantage of the potential of audio as a new distribution channel for newspapers in the digital eco-system.

Knowledge exchange and the creative industries: A reflective commentary on current practice

This reflective commentary summarizes the key learnings that arose from the 2019/20 Knowledge Exchange and the Creative Industries seminar series. These seminars at the University of Bristol, UK, looked at engagement with research within the creative industries. Each seminar showcased an academic and artistic partnership from across South West England and Wales which resulted in an artistic output that could be classified as ‘immersive’, including, but not limited to, audio storytelling applications, augmented reality games, virtual reality projects, films and theatre productions. Each seminar involved collaborators sharing their experiences and thoughts on best practice, possible styles and potential pitfalls in knowledge exchange projects. My commentary provides an overview of the partnerships, which represent a snapshot of current knowledge exchange practices in the region. I summarize the common trends that emerged throughout the seminars, including methods of initiating a collaboration, the scalability of partnerships between industry and academia, the challenges surrounding process when working on multi-partner collaborations, and questions of ethics and intellectual property. I also reflect upon the processes and learnings that arose from hosting the series, to guide others who are thinking about strategies to encourage collaboration. Overall, the commentary offers a blueprint of considerations for those in both academia and the creative industries who are considering embarking upon knowledge exchange projects. By drawing attention to the lessons learned from a series of successful partnerships, the discussion paves the way for future projects of engaged research within the creative industries.

China's Himalaya FM: Radio à la carte

Having worked as a professional host for the radio and television station of Jilin province, one traditional Chinese broadcaster experienced an interesting transformation into a new media host. Since 2014, Shi Zhan has been practising a new form of audio storytelling — vividly recreating the history of China's ancient dynasties on Shanghai-based Himalaya FM, the country's most successful audio network.

The Fragmented Story of Immersive Longform Storytelling

The Fragmented Story of Immersive Longform Storytelling Jeff Inman (bio) Immersive Longform Storytelling: Media, Technology, Audience. David O. Dowling. Routledge, 2019. 207 pp. $44.95 paperback. You might be able to blame the entire longform-journalism explosion of the last decade on the release of a DVD box set of The X-Files. Stick with me here. Prior to the box set's release in 2000, fans were tied to network schedules and VCR (videocassette recorder) timers. New episodes of shows dropped only during the colder months. Revisiting old episodes required catching reruns or hitting a friend's carefully curated tape collection. Nothing was served up on demand. But then came The X-Files. While commercial DVDs had been available in the United States since late 1996, no one had smashed together twenty-four episodes (plus a few behind-the-scenes documentaries) into one package. Suddenly, an entire season of a show could be gobbled up in one Red Bull-fueled sitting whenever you wanted. The binge revolution had begun. At least that is one of the theories in David O. Dowling's book Immersive Longform Storytelling: Media, Technology, Audience, which breaks down the rise of digital longform journalism in all its iterations, from podcasts to Netflix binges. And he may be right. That X- Files box set, along with subsequent other innovations, changed how we consumed media. Fan-service documentaries, when paired with complete seasons of shows, primed the pump for episodic documentaries like Making a Murderer, which required both audience patience and inventive storytelling. Because we had been trained on complex TV shows with multiple story lines, like Lost and Game of Thrones, burning through Tiger King was second nature. [End Page 110] The same goes with audio. Radio shows such as This American Life and the 2002 launch of WNYC's Radiolab rebuilt audio storytelling, taking deep dives into topics while playing with sound, journalistic interjections, and literary journalism formats. The result was the explosion of podcasts like Serial, S- Town, and all their various true-crime copycats. And then there is the massive shift in text-based storytelling. The 2000s were dominated by intellectual snacks—clickbait that pulled you in with eye-grabbing headlines but generally failed to deliver on its promise. Then came a confluence of events: the rise in mobile technology; faster broadband speeds; advances in content-management systems and graphic design; and a change in internet currency away from counting clicks to time spent on page. Combined, those advances laid the foundation for narrative packages such as the New York Times' 2012 story "Snow Fall: Avalanche at Tunnel Creek," which immersed readers in text directly paired with visuals and videos—an experience that recalibrated multimedia journalism altogether. According to Dowling, all these changes in journalism were not just about innovation. They were also a reaction: "At the core of this turn toward longer, more complex works is a demand for context and analysis, precisely the kind absent from the Twitter-driven news cycle predicated on headlines and speed" (76). Consumers and users wanted depth. They wanted to see the web of connections. They wanted story. Dowling shows how those wants eventually gave rise to the slow-journalism movement, which eschews quick deadlines and perpetual updates, for patience, and where being "the last to report a story is to be more accurate and thorough" (84). It spurs on websites like Longreads and the literary nonfiction communities on Goodreads. It sparks the second wave of podcasts. It pushes news organizations into immersive virtual reality (VR) storytelling. It even leaks into content marketing, where documentaries like Star Wars: The Evolution of the Lightsaber Duel serve as both content and commercial. It is a lot to take in, which may be why Dowling broke the book up into seven distinct chapters, each focusing on a particular medium or mode of delivery. One chapter focuses on social media and online reading communities. Another, on interactive online documentaries. A third, on ondemand TV. But this separation does the cultural shift that has occurred in journalism a disservice. Rather than use the tools of longform journalism to [End Page 111] make all those intricate and often unnoticed connections between the...