Over the course of the last decade, podcasting has taken hold and has emerged as an important means of bringing history to a wider audience than traditional publications. Sarah Koenig’s Serial, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich’s Radiolab have popularized podcasting as a medium and their shows have millions of downloads each year. As podcasting has gained in popularity, historians have increasingly sought to capitalize on this with varying degrees of success. The purpose of the panel is to engage in a roundtable discussion about how historians can use podcasts to bring their work to an audience outside our narrow academic fields. The moderator (Nicole Hemmer) will dig into why each panelist decided to get into podcasting, how they apply their professional training, how they go about developing episodes, and the important question of academic incentive (or lack thereof) for podcasting.

Here is how the roundtable discussion with be structured:

Chair Introduction – 5 minutes

The chair will begin by introducing the session topic, format and panelists.

Roundtable Discussion – 60 minutes

The chair will moderate a 60-minute discussion amongst the panelists, allowing each of them to answer the following types of questions.

1. Why did you decide to become a podcaster? How did you decide upon the format you use in your show? What are the advantages or disadvantages of that format?
2. How does your professional training factor into the work you do on the podcast?
3. How do you select your topics? How do you find appropriate guests for the show?
4. Because there are no real academic incentives for making a podcast (i.e., moving toward tenure), do you feel this is an underappreciated—but worthwhile—medium? Should there be academic incentives or rewards?

Audience Questions – 25 minutes

Following the roundtable discussion, the chair will take questions from the audience for the last 25 minutes of the session.