Digital Media and New Aural Cultures

 For my final blog post I chose to focus on the connections between women and radio broadcasting. Authors Skoog & Badenoch (2020) note that since its early introduction in the domestic sphere in the 1920s, radio has been used as a medium for the expression of women’s voices, needs and concerns (178). Early radio broadcast were known to provide valuable information and education as well as companionship for listeners at home, who, especially during daytime, were often largely women (Skoog & Badenoch, 2020, p.178).  These original radio programmes for and by women, give us a look into the individual lives and work of women broadcasters, the gendered controversies, debates, and issues over women’s voices (both on and off air), and changing definitions of appropriate programming content for women listeners (Skoog & Badenoch, 2020, p.178).  Even today we see the radio shows and podcasts ran by women whose content and purpose for broadcasting is very similar to the ...

While viewing Pontypool through the lens of Harold Innis’ analysis I would argue that the movie is an example of space bias rather than time bias. Innis describes space bias as the ability to share a message despite a geographical location. Compared to. Time bias that is solidified and not easily moved. During lecture we used the Pyramids as an example of something that is time bias   Seen in Pontypool the English language travels from person to person. Furthermore the sender (in this case Grant Mazzy) never has to be in the same physical space as the receiver (the listener) in order for the message (the virus).   While watching the movie I found that the loud beeping noise in the film helped me understand the space biases. However, I do understand that the beeping noise was by accident rather than done on purpose.   Do you think this noise helped show the space bias or possibly just an inconvenience when watching the movie?

 I discussed different types of podcasting methods and examples during my presentation. The required readings for my topic provided a better understanding of podcasting and how it became what it is today.  I personally found the emergence of audio blogging particularly interesting, as the middle step between blogging and podcasting, because I wasn't entirely familiar with the concept of audio-blogging prior to this course. Throughout the research, I was able to listen to various styles of audio blogs and podcast series. In my presentation, I introduced 6 different modes of storytelling, which were live storytelling, feature documentary, personal documentary, historical narrative, non-narrated story, and audio drama. These types of 'storytelling' podcasts were very popular in the early 2010s, with different crime podcasts or informative podcast series.  However, one thing I noticed recently is that nowadays, there is an increase in the popularity of podcasting series with ...

I found the platformization of podcasting to be a very interesting topic discussed. Prior to the platformization of podcasting, as discussed by John Sullivan in “The Platforms of Podcasting: Past and Present”, a method known as RSS was used to consume podcasts. This was not easy for everyone to use, as only people with higher knowledge of the use of technology would be able to use this method. Steve Jobs would be the first to make a platform for podcasting with the release of iTUnes 4.9. THis allowed users the ability to consume and discover podcasts from the same place, ultimately making it much easier for the general population to enjoy this medium. Sullivan then goes on to explain how many followed Apple's steps as they were responsible for its popularization. Sullivan expands on this topic, leading him to the discussion of podcast enclosure. Due to the sheer amounts of podcasting platforms, it led to the enclosure of platforms beginning to produce content that would only be ava...

  After completing my assigned readings for my presentation during week 9, I found myself thinking a lot about what David Arditti calls “unending consumption”. Something we have discussed throughout the term is our listening habits as consumers. As listeners, we expect new content, and new digital technologies to listen to this content. For example, streaming platforms. Streaming platforms give us constant access to music whenever and wherever we want. I would argue that it is this “seemingly free” and never ending feeling that keeps listeners paying their monthly subscription fees for streaming platforms.  This brings me to what David Arditti calls unending consumption. Arditti argues that with the newest development in sound technologies, this being streaming platforms, this aspect of unending consumption has begun. As listeners, we will never stop wanting new musical content, and the efficiency streaming platforms provide plays up this feeling. We expect our favourite artis...

This course has given us the chance to explore the evolution of digital technologies, more specifically, technologies of sound production and distribution. We learned how people interact with them and how that interaction has changed with the introduction of new sound technologies and technological advancements. For instance, we can contrast radio and podcasts and how people interact with these technologies. Podcasts can be hosted by one person, two people or even several people. Podcasts usually insinuate a conversation between people; if presented by one host, that host is talking to you, the host is stimulating a conversation with the listener. Radio stations usually play music – that are already trending – tends to be repetitive and predictable, radio stations may also present news reports, which are easily accessible online, and people can consume them a lot faster than radio station would deliver. Podcasts allow people to select specific topics that they are interested in and lis...