by Jason Camlot

Shortform Podcast: In addition to writing a final paper, you will be required to engage in scripting and producing a short and simple podcast of 4-6 MINUTES in length. The podcast may adapt to this sonic form of digital publishing an idea from your final paper, or it may go in a different direction, entirely. We will discuss the podcast at length in class, including some of the basic tools (recorder and software) you will need to produce this assignment. Your shortform podcast must be completed and submitted to me using wetransfer (< https://wetransfer.com/>) or on USB key by Friday, April 3rd. We will hold a listening session and discussion of all podcasts during our final class on Monday, April 6th.

Criteria for evaluating the podcast, and what it should, at the most basic level, contain and try to do:

  1. It should imagine its audience and that should be audible in some way, whether explicitly or implicitly. This entails thinking about your tone, register, ‘voice’, and what it is contributing to your expository goals.
  2. It must have at least one audible sample (a sound clip) that is used either to illustrate an argument being made, or as an object of analysis for the discussion pursued.
  3. It must have a script (not necessarily a full transcript, but a detailed outline) that shows the arrangement of the materials and sounds, and, ideally, that suggests a rationale for how the materials, arguments, stories and sounds are presented. So, you will need to produce a written script to accompany the completed podcast that you hand in.
  4. It may include other sounds that are included for effect or support of the podcast, but that aren’t central objects of analysis (sound effects, situating sounds, background music, etc.)
  5. It may include interviews with others (experts, peers, ‘subjects’). If you perform interviews, you will need to have them sign a permission form so that you can use the audio you have recorded in your podcast. This leads to the next point:
  6. Ethics and rights will be a consideration as you work on your podcast. As much as possible, you should try to know about and secure the rights to the sounds you will use in your podcast. You don’t need to HAVE the rights to everything for the private assignment you’re submitting (you’re not publishing it when you send it to me), but rights issues are a big question for any podcast that is published, and you should take these matters into consideration. Similarly, you should consider the ethical implications of any sounds or speech you decide to include in a podcast. Do you have the ethical right to share something that may have bene understood as ‘private’, or that may be disturbing to listeners? For the rights questions, you should identify (in your script) rights information that you have for the sounds you use. The ethical questions are more a matter of your own thinking on the use of sounds in a published podcast.
  7. You should aim for good sound quality and high-quality production in the podcast you create. This will entail figuring out how to normalize the volume of the clips you use so that they play at more or less the same amplitude, and how to record sounds without distracting or unwanted audio.
  8. The final output should be a single WAV file of between 4-6 minutes in length.