The past few days I’ve been delving into the world of podcasts and checking out the variety of podcasts available. This has been a pretty consistent go to through the changes of COVID-19 effecting all ways of life. Consuming media and checking out a variety of podcasts has been a way to cope through it. One of my good friends has taken this time to catch up on old shows, much like myself. Throughout doing so I checked out The Daily, Call Your Girlfriend, The Office Ladies, Serial, and Breakaway Ministries. Each of these podcasts took their own twists around how they approached doing a podcast, yet shared similar elements.

The first podcast I checked out was from The Daily entitled A Historic Stimulus Bill. This podcast took an approach of a news cast production and talked through the recent bill passed by Congress. I listened to this podcast while working on an assignment for another class of mine and was able to mostly speaking get caught up with what was going on in the wake of this outbreak. It helped me to better wrap my head around what has been going on overall in regards to the political sides of things. The podcast took more of an interview approach to it all, truthfully it reminded me more of a 20/20 sort of discussion. In terms of sound production, they incorporated a theme song of sorts and had occasional music transitions. They incorporated sound bites of a variety of news coverage. When the discussion got into if it was questionable, the music playing shifted causing the listener to respond a certain way. There also were a lot of ad sections shoved in, truthfully it overall reminded me of a news cast with commercial breaks.

The next podcast I checked out was Call Your Girlfriend’s Businesswoman Special 2: Podcast Millionaires. Similarly to the first podcast I listened to, I did so while working on other assignments. This podcast talked a lot on the ins and outs of being a podcaster and showing how these specific podcasters do it. This podcast took an approach of being more of a conversational sort of set up. It was less “professional” and reminded me more of a talk show with the personal vibes. They had a 3rd speaker that added in another voice, but otherwise was less of an interview and more of a conversation. They had a theme song, interludes, and ads. The ads unlike others was much more personable and them giving things they liked, but not so much of an ad. It was a longer piece that lasted a full hour.

The 3rd podcast I listened to was The Office Ladies episode The Fire which commentated through the Office’s fire episode. Having seen the episode they discussed helped me to appreciate it further with relating to some things they discussed. I listened to this one in the morning after waking up. It stars the actresses who play Angela and Pam in the Office. This was very much so them just chatting about their experiences. They had a theme song and some music interludes, but mostly conversations. They also were much more involved with their fans. The incorporation of fan’s emails gave more layers to the discussion.

The 4th podcast I listened to was Serial’s Episode 1 on their website. This one was different in it’s set up and location. Most others I had listened to on Spotify, but this one had their own website. This podcast gave a more TV without the pictures. It reminded me of those stories they used to walk through on the radio my mom talked about listening to pretty regularly. It kept engagement and took a different approach of breaking down what exactly had happened within this situation. As someone who really likes true crime shows and videos, this was a field day for me. I thought it was interesting the choices they made with sound bytes and really combing through the case again.

Lastly I listened to a podcast by Breakaway Ministries entitled What’s Up With Christian’s Ignoring Science. I listened to this one while at the gym and was very interested by this. This podcast looked at the ways of Christianity and science intermingling and discussed it extensively. This podcast was based off of a live sermon series at Texas A&M University. The podcast was set up like a sermon for the most part and had an intro and outro song.

Delving into the world of podcasting as a whole has allowed me to explore a lot of different options and honestly interesting discussions. A lot of this related back to seeing the ease of access to podcasts and the application to daily life. When I had discussions with others about the different podcasts I was listening to, oftentimes they had heard of them or listened to them before. Seeing the variety of locations they were found on was also pretty interesting. Most I could find on spotify, but some were specifically located on their own websites.

Podcasts give a human quality to media mediums and allow for an understanding of our society. It gives a variety of understanding to the different topics. I think what I found interesting was the changing set up of the podcasts depending on what the topic was. Some had recorded versions of their podcasts with a video, while others did not. I think the one thing was the overall lack of user communication on this platform. There was a small blurb explaining what each episode was about or what series it falls under.