Steve Rayson

Political podcast listening has increased significantly over the last two years and raises questions about adoption patterns in society. Who listens to these political podcasts? My recent survey of 1,346 listeners has found the audience is overwhelmingly male, highly educated and relatively wealthy. The average age of a listener is 41. Listeners discover political podcasts socially with 60% finding podcasts by word of mouth and 46% through social media. There is also a core of committed podcast listeners with 32% of the audience reporting to listen to five or more political podcasts a week. The audience characteristics are similar to an  audience study , published earlier this year, of the popular Making History podcast (covering science, history and politics) in Israel which found that 90% of listeners were male, mostly 26 to 45 and well educated with relatively high incomes.  The full details are set out below.

The ‘Pod Save America’ podcast “has caused a lot of people, particularly young people, to become engaged in ideas, in politics, in our democracy, like never before and for that I think we owe them something.” Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney, 30 November 2017.  The ‘Pod Save America’ podcast was launched in January 2017 by ex-Obama staffers with an aim of informing, entertaining and inspiring both action and activism . The podcast aimed to create a ‘younger, more authentic voice’ that covered politics in a way that engages young people by making politics ‘entertaining and even fun,’ and by promising an unmediated “no-bullshit conversation about politics”. They were very critical of mainstream political coverage, did not see themselves as political pundits but rather aimed to become ‘the hub of the resistance’. The creators wanted to own their own show because they wanted ‘to not only be partisan but also activist’. In 2017 the podcast helped raise over $2m for Democrats runn...

Podcasting is a medium that is arguably going through a ‘golden age’ (Berry 2015; Ganesh 2016). The latest Reuters report (2019) has found that companies are planning to invest more in audio and podcasts in 2019. This rise in popularity is partly due to the ubiquity of smartphones making podcasts readily available. My personal interest in podcasting has grown from listening to an increasing number of political podcasts and this led me to read a recently published book  Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media 2018 edited by Llinares, Fox and Berry (2018). I have outlined below some of the key themes from the book.

"What politics podcasts would you recommend?" This was one of the questions asked in my MSc Facebook Messenger group this week. As I scrolled through my podcast library I realised I now have over 20 political and media podcasts that I listen to regularly. I do love the podcast format, as I can listen while walking, driving or working out in the gym. Many also have an intimacy that make you feel part of the conversation. Here are ten political podcasts that I can recommend based on many hundreds of hours of personal listening.