Facts, Figures, and Stories
Podcasts play a huge role in our society today. There are podcasts on almost every subject ranging from podcast to teach the listener something to podcast designed for the listener to enjoy a story. This past week, I have listened to three different, exceptional, podcasts of three different subjects. One was a very short podcast called “Curiosity Daily”. A 7-10 minute episode is released every day, each with a different topic. Each episode will cover three research based topics ranging from life hacks to technology and science news. An episode I listened to covered some information on how the big five personality traits are WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic), a snake infested island in Brazil, and why mouth wounds heal quicker than other parts of our body. Another podcast I listened to was Bill Nye’s “Science Rules!” which is a listener based podcast where listeners can submit a question and each episode Bill Nye and his crew will discuss that topic and have people call in with related questions. Each episode is about 45-50 minutes and each covers a different subject. I listened to an episode where the topic was relating to whether or not we could figure out if we are living in a simulation or not. It was fascinating but also never really came to a conclusion and left me contemplating existence on a whole new level. The last podcast I listened to this week was a brand new find called “Untitled Dad Project”. This podcast is a girl’s recreation of her dad’s story. She never knew her dad and he died before she could get to know him so she decided to create this podcast to create his story and figure out how to mourn. Each episode is 45-60 minutes long and each episode is based on topic so it’s not chronological which I think is super interesting. I am not finished with that podcast but I am very excited to listen to it more.
I think listening to multiple podcasts has given me a very good sense of what to keep in mind for our podcast project. Moving forward with the podcast project, I think it’s a good idea to remain aware of not ending the episode on an unanswered question the way the “Science Rules!” episode did for me. As a listener, I was frustrated that I started the podcast with a question only for it to end with me being more confused about the same question. Granted, it was a very confusing topic that I don’t believe can have a clear answer, but it is something to think about when creating a podcast episode. Perhaps only cover a question that can be answered in one episode unless you will be creating multiple episodes on the same topic to expand on it as much as possible.
Jazz
