Community Building
Juska Wendland, radio host at YleX and PhD researcher at University of Lapland:
“If you want to build a very strong community, it all starts with a feeling of authenticity. /…/ But this is also why we don’t feel the same pull towards certain kinds of podcasts. A good example is The Joe Rogan Podcast. /…/ Only after that you move towards participation, parasociality and reinforcing loops, which lead to building community together, as a community.” [PDF] [Video Talk]
Case examples of podcasts with highly engaged communities:
Katja Stojnić – Rožnata dolina (Val 202 / Radio Slovenija): “I would say ‘Ok, next Tuesday I am recording a sex worker. She's transgender. She's from France. What would you want me to ask her?’ It doesn't stop here. I will mention them in my podcast. /.../ I feel like this is a strong part of community building.” [Video Talk]
Katharina Mahrenholtz & Birgit Laabs – eat.read.sleep (NDR Kultur / ARD) “You always have to keep in mind that the community is not your whole audience. /.../ But you have to be careful not to do too much community-focused things, otherwise you risk scaring off regular listeners and also new listeners – and we need them too.” [PDF] [Video Talk]
Loïs de Jong – De Lesbische Liga (NTR/NPO) “This whole podcast started as a passion project of 2 girls and an editor-in-chief that believed in it and the opportunity to realize it by the NPO. /…/ But we're now with the whole team, it's just gotten too successful.” [PDF] [Video Talk]