Podcasting and journalism in the Spanish-speaking world

Abstract

Podcasting has been considered a refashioning of radio communication, which can be better understood if one contemplates its wide diversity of formats. However, it has been shown that a genre of narrative journalism in podcasting is emerging, characterized by a strong personal involvement of podcasters. In these stories, producers experience the freedom of podcasting while exploring the limits of podcast genres and practices. The dominance of the mainstream agenda disappears to place universal themes in value that can go deeper into past events or highlight aspects of everyday life from a critical perspective in which the narrator not only observes, but also participates. This journalistic narrative approach focuses more on human connections than on a set of standardized principles. This chapter focuses on some of the most reputable narrative podcasts produced in Spain and Latin America. Based on a methodology that combines close analytical listening to podcasts with in-depth qualitative interviews with journalists and producers, the study shows how producers are free of the constraints of radio programming while benefiting from the characteristics of the podcast universe. It also looks at how they have to deal with the productive tension between journalistic rules and ethics, such as detachment and impartiality, and the potential of the most intimate ways of storytelling.