This is a link to Alexander Wolfe’s blog post which poses the question Is Podcasting Dead?
I was alerted to this article by way of the Savage Love Podcas, which is kind of funny in itself. As a person who is involved in radio, podcasting is something that has always interested me. Aside from subscribing to a few audio and video podcasts, this medium has been touted as the “new radio” for quite some time. If something out there was going to completely replace audio broadcasting over radio waves, I think that everyone considered that it was going to be podcasts.
I should stop speaking in the past because I don’t agree with Alexander Wolfe’s assertions that podcasting is dead. He’s basing this on lower numbers of podcast downloads than radio listeners, and the fact that the content of podcasts are not the tech-savvy information style shows he had hoped would dominate the medium. I would never have expected podcasting to survive if all I wanted people listening to were information shows.
The big thing about this article was not some misguided man’s claim that podcasting was dead. Well in a way it was. This raised the question with me about who can declare the status of a medium? Hip hop is dead, punk is dead; these kinds of statements mean nothing to the people that still participate in those cultures. Podcasting is not dead as long as people podcast, and it can be about whatever they want
My other wonder was about deciding the purpose of a medium. I remember hearing that the internet was started so scholars could exchange data and theories. Arguably from their point of view, the experiment is out of control.
If podcasting was designed for geek-tech audiences, then it should not have been allowed to be used by anyone for anything.
when reading these types of stories (the funereal pronouncements of certain critics), i think it’s important to think about the ideological positioning of the individuals making the pronouncements. are they industry lobbyists who would like to see something replace the podcast or are they simply cultural critics bemoaning the fact that the experiment of podcasting has not measured up to its/their own original expectations?
i.