Converting my thoughts from essay into multimedia format involved consideration of voice and visuals, and of audience. If the format of my argument was going to change, so was my following. This gave me great creative freedom. As an essay is very academic, I felt now I was given the chance to speak to a wider span of people. What would I do with this freedom, then? Who did I feel could also benefit from the information relayed in my writing that would not be as likely to search for and read it in its current form?
As of recently I have become engrossed in the world of Podcasts. Now too accustomed to having earbuds connected to my iPhone at all times for constant musical entertainment, it got to a point where I felt I could use some of my commute time throughout the day to learn more than just the lyrics of a song. That’s where these broadcasted forms of open discussion became a new part of my routine. Similarly to music, a podcast can be played as simple background noise where you can tune in and out and still appreciate the sound of it, it can be used purely for enjoyment, or it can be heard with intent to learn the meaning behind it. Arguably much more than a song, though, a podcast has a huge time range in which they can run. Podcasts may involve one or more speakers, and incorporate one or multiple personal or hard-based factual accounts of a topic. Generally speaking, podcasts can be as formal or informal as the host decides and with all of that said I decided this form of expression would be a great way to give me the leeway to go more into depth about the things less covered in my essay.
A 2015 survey conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital revealed the statistics of who actually listens to podcasts and I am not surprised by the results. Fairly equally distributed, the numbers showed that 15% of users were between the ages of 12-17 and 18-24, while that percentage increased to 20% between the ages of 25-34, 17% for those 35-44, and back down to 15% from 45-54. While my essay may only be viewed by those looking for the information most likely for academic use in high school or in university, I found the statistics of podcast consumers much more appealing if I wanted to get my word out.
Some of the major aspects lost when my essay was turned into a podcast included the greater level of trust for the facts given in an essay with cited sources, and some of the more extensive arguments that I was able to verbalize through writing and without the time limitation I was given on this project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SKUyg6Dujw