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Disruptive in Nature: Discussing Advantages and Disadvantages of Media Organizations’ In-House Podcasts

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Abstract

Podcasts are currently experiencing a second heyday across all possible genres and topics, including productions created and aired by journalistic media outlets. This submission argues that podcasts’ distinct characteristics have profound and transformational impacts on media organizations. These include, for example, a young main target group with a comparatively high advertising acceptance and the format’s apparent boundlessness when it comes to possible topics, structure, deadlines, and space. Podcasts are considered a subjective, reflexive genre that raises questions about journalistic objectivity norms and simultaneously increases potentials for parasocial interaction and transmedia storytelling. Discussing the advantages and disadvantages of these aspects, this submission aims at deriving recommendations for both podcast producers and listeners, as well as potential future directions for the medium.

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