Abstract

This paper will explore the development of podcasting as a malleable medium that has been constantly changing. Podcasting emerged as a solution to moving recorded audio files. Producers adopted it as a space that presented itself as a democratic environment that was not subject to the same commercial or regulator pressures of traditional radio. It embraced the ideals of blogging, and whilst it existed as an audio medium, it was free of the constraints and conventions of radio.

Over time, podcasts developed their own specificities, and the medium took on a distinct identity. Many of those arriving in the medium were no longer drawing from other media but were native podcasters making the most of the new environment (McGregor, 2022). As they established their own practices, productions such as Serial and The Joe Rogan Experience emerged that affirmed podcasting’s status as a medium. In the years that followed, new corporate actors entered the space and began to shift attention away from the open and democratic origins of the medium and towards platforms (Sullivan, 2019). In recent years this platformisation has taken the shape of an increased use of video, which poses questions about the nature of the medium. Is podcasting still an audio medium, or is it, as Tiziano Bonini (2022) suggests, a hybrid medium now subject to new actors?