Podcasts are a baby step in the right direction
A fellow classmate in my Participatory Media class, Alex Bisceglie, doesn’t think podcasts live up to their hype. I’ll agree that a certain amount of iPod-mania has inflated this rather simplistic technology, but I think it would be a shame to dismiss podcasts simply because they aren’t sufficiently cutting-edge. Alex writes:
Why are podcasts being hailed as a revolutionary media phenomenon? They aren’t interactive. They aren’t dynamic. Podcasts are mp3 mixtapes. I get so frustrated when people develop stagnant technology for current limited devices. We have podcasts because dynamic streaming interactive content is just not portable. Mobile phones are getting increasingly sophisticated, personal digital media players are getting more powerful, and computers are becoming more and more portable [read tiny and connectable].
By re-emphasizing Alex’s definition, I think I may be able to make my point: podcasts are MP3 mixtapes. They are DRM-free. They work with virtually any device or audio software. Podcasting is not interactive or dynamic (not inherently anyway, one might argue it could lead to further interaction and dynamicism), but they are interfacing with a broadcast-centric media culture and giving its ‘consumers’ just a little more control over their listening (or viewing) experience.
I put the word consumers in quotes in the previous sentence because I find it to be a little outmoded and just a little degrading way of thinking about an audience. It’s important to strive for the kind of media revolution Alex is imagining, but it will take some time for us all to understand the implications of a more meaningful restructuring of the media distribution aparatus.
Blogging, it has been said, could have existed years earlier than when it finally took hold. It wasn’t technology holding us back, but rather our capacity to understand how empowering it might be to lower the threshold to the online creative process. It will be the next generation of rip-mix-podcastin’ kids who figure out how to make this stuff really compelling. Our work now lies in disengaging ourselves from the shackles of a corporate-dominated media landscape. I see the most pressing work ahead being driven more by rethinking power structures, not so much technology—but of course the two need to inform each other.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:10 am
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February 7th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Dan, I don’t necessarily think that podcasts are a bad thing, just not innovative. Video provides a great medium for certain types of expression, not to mention the plain damn functionality of a common, easily digestible linear audio/visual tool. But podcasting is a distribution tool, and one that is little more than bastardized video conferencing. Take the relationship dialog with those two nerds we looked at in class, its email with video, mailing video-tapes to each other in the mail, writing a letter—just another iteration of pen-pallism.
My biggest worry is the complacence factor. People get something. It works. Its fine. Why change? Blah blah blah, paradigm shift, digital revolution, blah blah, more angry nerd stuff.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
I’m with you brother. Let the paradigms be shiftin’. The mobile device is still such an ivory tower (in the US). I kind of feel like there won’t be any drastic innovations on the mobile phone without some kind of government intervention.
February 8th, 2006 at 1:15 am
Grass Roots Movement! The pressure *needs* to come from the users. No more to be said.