Podcasting is a digital media format rapidly growing as a channel for science communication. Audiences are growing in size and reach every year. As a format, podcasting offers many ways to innovate. It also makes use of familiar conventions from traditional radio and story-telling. This module is a practice-based module to develop skills for creating individual podcasts and series. It also develops perspectives for thinking about podcasts within the wider contexts of science communication, science and technology studies, and entrepreneurial development. What can podcasts do? What can you do with podcasts?
Themes in this module range from format variety, audience, and purpose; inclusion, editorial, and ethics; markets, development, and innovation. Students will create podcast material suitable for publishing. They will assess current practices and trends in the industry. The module will develop skills in critical reflection and application of theory in communication sciences such as through debates around representation, voice, performance, authorship, narrative, post-truth, and topics of current interest. The module will have a distinct careers focus.
Professor Joe Cain teaches this module at UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS).
HPSC0161 Plan
This module is offered for advanced undergraduates (i.e., Year 3 undergraduates, equivalent to UCL level 6). It is available to students on all UCL undergraduate degree programmes. No prerequisites required. Please discuss this option with your academic tutor.
Delivery will be in lectures and seminars. Seminars include practical work, such as interviewing, editing, and production. Independent project work will be key to the module, and students will be expected to work with others either in-person or remotely.
Prior to the start of the module, students should learn how to use an audio-editing software package. Audacity is recommended because it is freeware and because it is powerful. Tutorials for Audacity are provided via LinkedIn Learning, to which UCL subscribes as an additional learning resource for our community. Garrick Chow’s course, “Learning Audacity”, is highly recommended. If you learn the fundamentals of one software package in this area, you pretty much learn the fundamentals for all of them. WE also explore new GenAI tools for transcribing, editing, and post-production.
For a glimpse into the podcasting industry, skim The Podcast Show, an annual convention in London organised to promote the industry, sell services, and create a gathering point. The next in-person event will be 21-22 May 2025.
Aims
Aims for the module include:
- Develop knowledge and critical thinking about podcasting as a medium for communication and engagement about science and technology, including STS
- Develop skills and techniques required to create podcasts, such as interview techniques, basic story-telling and narration, and core production techniques, such as appear on the podcast series, WeAreSTS.
- Integrate communication theory with practical projects, such as through projects that engage with critical debates around representation, voice, performance, authorship, narrative, post-truth, and topics of current interest
- Develop skills to evaluate degrees of accessibility, inclusion, and accuracy as well as production quality and suitability for broadcast
- Identify and interpret industry trends
- Identify paths for promoting social and commercial entrepreneurship (UCL has considerable support for student entrepreneurship)
- Identify career paths related to podcasting and other audio-dominant formats
Objectives
Objectives for the module focus on outcomes. By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Create podcast content to a high professional standard and suitable for publication
- Demonstrate creativity and craftsmanship in science communication
- Demonstrate skills and techniques required to create podcast elements
- Relate theory of science communication to practical projects, and vice versa
- Relate podcasting projects to themes in the industry, such as format, audience, voice, representation, structure, effectiveness, and social or commercial entrepreneurship
- Demonstrate constructive peer dialogue and peer evaluation
- Demonstrate time-management skills
- Demonstrate self-reflection and self-improvement skills
Assessment
Students deliver three pieces of work for the module; two practical pieces count towards the final mark; one formative piece is a pitch intended to improve the practical project.
- ANALYSIS asks students to dissect a typical podcast episode from the perspective of a production manager: what was required to create that one episode? They also will compare the podcast against general principles in science communication, industry standards, and social ambition. It will offer an opportunity to relate a product to principles in the field. This is a 1,000-word written essay contributing 25% to the module mark.
- WIP (work-in-progress) asks students to plan one podcast episode, providing a rationale, suggesting supporting research, and identifying audience, market, aims, and episode structure. This is formative, designed to help guide and improve the final project. It either will be a short in-person presentation or a short recording, depending on timetabling.
- EPISODE asks students to create a podcast episode suitable for publishing in the WeAreSTS podcast series. It will be a substantial (>20 minute) standalone audio project. Students also will submit supplemental metadata supporting their episode. This project contributes 75% to the module mark.
HPSC0161 Syllabus