Q&A: Speaking Out
Coming from very different institutional settings, Elizabeth Green Musselman and Audra J. Wolfe discuss the paths they took to podcasting the history of science.
Elizabeth Green Musselman
Why did you decide to create podcasts?
EGM: That path started when I was in college. At the time, I planned to become a science journalist, because it bothered me how much people were intimidated by the sciences and consequently how little people knew about them. I had come to love the writing of people like Stephen Jay Gould and James Gleick and the wonderful, now-defunct magazine The Sciences that the New York Academy of Sciences used to publish. So the plan was to try to get a job as a science reporter for a magazine or newspaper. Then I took a history of science course with Kathy Olesko and promptly fell down the academic rabbit hole. One dissertation and a pretty esoteric book later, I haven’t lost my love for popular science, and now see the history of science as an excellent tool for engaging non-scientists and scientists alike in a richly textured picture of what the sciences are really like and where they came from. About two years ago, I discovered knitting podcasts. (Knitters are unusually avid podcast fans because they like to have something to engage their ears while their hands and eyes are occupied.) I started listening to Cast On (http://www.cast-on.com), which is an especially aurally and content-rich, individually produced knitting podcast. Cast On got me completely hooked on the idea of starting my own podcast. I’ve long been a fan of the rich sound texture of public radio, but had no idea until I discovered podcasting how inexpensive and low-stakes it could be to start an NPR-like program of my own.
Audra J. Wolfe
AJW: Distillations is an institutional podcast, which meant that we had a rather different set of motivations for getting into the medium. Although the Chemical Heritage Foundation has an extensive Web site, we had not yet ventured into the waters of Web 2.0, and some of our funders were encouraging us to do so. One of the things that struck us about podcasting was that – while there were plenty of science podcasts available – there were no programs dedicated to the history of science, and hardly anything on chemistry. On the Internet, half of securing an audience is being there first, so we felt that podcasting offered a tremendous opportunity. Of course, by the time we were actually up and running, Elizabeth’s show had debuted, as had two new programs from the American Chemical Society (“Science Elements” and “Bytesize Science”). Fortunately, it turns out there’s plenty of room for everybody, and each of these shows has carved out a separate niche.
We were also impressed by the cost-benefit ratio. For most of our outreach tools, like our magazine or teacher conferences, the cost increases as you increase the audience. The wonderful thing about podcasts was that, aside from some marginal bandwidth fees, the investment is the same whether you reach 100 listeners or 100,000, in the United States or abroad.
What resources/skills did you bring to the job?
AJW: From the beginning, we had decided that if we wanted to do a show, we wanted to do it professionally. We received a $60,000 grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation that enabled us to hire Mia Lobel, an experienced radio producer, on a freelance basis to handle the technical aspects of putting together a show. Mia handles all the editing and mixing, recruits contributed pieces, and helps us write our scripts. Our own staff of history of science Ph.D.s supplies the show ideas and the expertise for individual shows. Once a month our “Creative Team” meets to come up with ideas for the next four to six shows, and an expert is assigned for each show. The expert researches the show, and then I turn those show notes into a draft script. We also have an assistant producer, Tori Indivero, who pitches in about four hours a week, and we asked Robert Hicks, a former CHF staff member, to be our voice.
After six months, we’ve finally got this down to a routine – but the learning curve was steep because we insisted on radio-quality sound. In just over a month, we learned how to use blogging software, iTunes, and sophisticated recording equipment. It turns out that was the easy part compared with coming up with a consistent voice and a feel for radio!
EGM: Here’s another way in which our podcasts and experiences are different. I began my podcast as an individual project. I decided to get just enough funding to buy professional-quality equipment (about $500), try it for a year, and then seek more significant funding if the experiment was successful and enjoyable. Now that I’m coming up on the end of that year, I’ve recently begun the long process of applying for an NSF grant to make my podcast more frequent, to do more on-location recording, and to hire a staff.
The main skills I brought to podcasting were, first, my nine years of teaching at a small liberal arts college. In that context, I need to make clear to colleagues and students with a wide variety of intellectual interests why the history of science matters. This has helped me to think more clearly about what topics and what styles of presentation might interest a wider audience beyond my college. Second, I have a fair amount of vocal training – not in radio, but in musical and theatrical performance. I studied voice for several years, sang in an a cappella group for several more, and have acted over the years in community theater. Before I began my own podcast, I also contributed to several other people’s podcasts, so that I could develop my “radio voice” in a low-stakes way.
As Audra noted, the steepest learning curve comes with the technical side of audio production. I knew absolutely nothing about audio recording and editing when I started. Fortunately, there is a lot of help available online and in book form, and there is ample free, intuitive, audio-editing software available. Still, it took me months to feel even remotely adept at it.
What are the advantages of a podcast over, for example, a blog?
EGM: Podcasts and blogs both have closely related and important parts to play in building more grassroots civic engagement. In fact, before the iPod cornered the market on mp3 players, podcasts were originally called audio blogs. Podcasts do have one distinct advantage over blogs, though, and that is the rich, you-are-there audio experience that podcasts can provide. We all know from our experience with e-mail how difficult it is to convey tone in electronic text. Podcasts don’t have that problem, and they can also offer a textured sense of place that can be particularly valuable in a history program. It’s also worth re-emphasizing what Audra said earlier about podcasts’ advantages over radio: podcasts are less expensive to produce than radio programs by several orders of magnitude. This means that podcasts can delve into niche markets and offer messages that Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
AJW: Although I would agree with most of what Elizabeth said, there are two things to keep in mind that make podcasting rather different than blogs – one of which is an advantage, the other a disadvantage. First, on the positive side. Audio is a medium that works best when you tell stories. It can be difficult to do more abstract, theoretical things over the air waves. You have to keep in mind that listeners can only hear things in one direction – forward – and they need to be pulled along by a narrative. Fortunately, history lends itself well to this format. While academic historians can certainly be abstract and theoretical when we want to be, most of us know how to tell stories, and most histories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This makes audio a particularly appropriate medium for history of science.
But there is a downside. When blogs work best, they create an online community. Readers can comment not only on the blog posts, but on other readers’ comments; sometimes commentators even become contributors. There’s a certain immediacy with blogs. Unfortunately, this kind of interaction is much less likely with a podcast. Distillations does have a blog, with a commenting function, but the majority of our listeners download the show through iTunes and never see it. What’s more, if you listen to the show on an iPod and wanted to make a comment, you’d have to go back to your computer, go to the blog, and find the right episode. You might be listening to a show that we posted two months ago, so there’s also a significant lag time. I think I speak for both of us when I say that podcasting has been significantly less interactive than we had hoped for.
Who are your target audiences and what do you hope to achieve with these audiences?
AJW: One of the things that appealed to us about podcasts was what we learned about podcast listeners. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the average podcast listener is male, in his mid-40s, and is tech-savvy. (Just think what the average would look like without the knitters!) For better or for worse, this demographic profile maps fairly closely onto the kinds of scientists and science policy makers CHF tries to reach. We saw a podcast on the history of science as a way to introduce practicing scientists to history, and hopefully to reach some other people who didn’t yet realize that they were interested in science.
EGM: I was struck by that Pew study, too, which also projected substantial growth in podcast listening over the next decade. When I make my podcasts, I imagine a pretty diverse audience, but primarily one that is college-educated and that already reads books and watches TV programs about history or science. I wanted to offer something that people outside the field would find interesting. There are a surprising number of people out there looking for brain food. I also wanted to offer something that college faculty could give to their students or use in a classroom, just to mix things up a bit. Finally, I try to remember that a good portion of my audience – somewhere around a fifth to a quarter – is not North American. Keeping that audience in mind pushes me to bring something of a world-history emphasis to the program.
What are some favorite podcasts you have produced?
EGM: I have several episodes that I’m especially proud of for one reason or another. I really like the first episode, for example, because it has such a strong contribution from one of my undergraduate students. I also felt great about the sixth and seventh episodes, which feature a fantastic two-part guest essay on time by a Montessori teacher trainer in Canada. He’s a listener who contacted me out of the blue about contributing, and did a marvelous job. It’s thrilling to me to see the podcast develop something of a by-the-people/for-the-people character already.
The episode that I think reflects my own best writing and producing work is the third one on Berlin. In that episode, I somehow found the time to do the kind of rich, layered audio work that I want eventually to do in every episode. I also wrote the script in such a way that, together with the sound, it really made you feel like you were trekking around Berlin with me, visiting different sites where the history of science and medicine come to life.
AJW: With an episode every week, it’s hard to settle on just a few favorites! I guess I would have to point to some of the shows with unexpected topics, or shows where we managed to have a bit more fun than usual. Episode 14, Blockbuster Science, is definitely one of my favorites, where we got to talk about krypton and G. I. Joe. I’ve also very much enjoyed the shows where we’ve done some sort of project on air, for example, Episode 10, on color, where one of my colleagues made a batch of mauvine dye. The time show (Episode 25) has a fun piece about my grandmother’s pressure cooker, and the segment on Pop Rocks on Episode 21, is a hoot. What I like about all of these shows is that they’ve really taken advantage of the audio medium, with atmospheric sounds that you just can’t capture on the printed page.
What are some of the favorite podcasts that you have heard?
AJW: I love Radiolab, from WNYC in New York. It’s technically a radio show, but since it’s only available on a few NPR stations I’m going to call it a podcast. I cannot say enough wonderful things about it. Radiolab takes a single big-picture subject, like “love” or “mortality” or “sound,” and then examines it through the lens of science. The producers also take an intensely creative approach to audio, with lots of layering and tempo changes. It’s by far my favorite show.
EGM: Ditto: I’m a huge fan of Radiolab (http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/), too, for all the reasons that Audra mentioned. I love the goofy rapport between the two hosts on that show: it’s a great demonstration of how you can mix serious content with entertaining style. I’ve also learned a lot about good storytelling and creating sound atmospheres from QN, a podcast produced by Sage Tyrtle in Toronto (http://quirkynomads.com). Sage is amazing: she does the podcast as a hobby, but manages to produce wonderful, radio-quality dramas and other set pieces. Historians of science should also check out the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s series “How to Think about Science,” which is available in podcast form (http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/). This is an ongoing series of lengthy, intelligent interviews with leading figures in science studies. Great stuff, and delightful to see our field making it onto the mainstream radio waves.
What kind of feedback have you received so far?
EGM: As Audra mentioned earlier, podcasters are generally disappointed by how little feedback they receive. And she’s right that this happens because people often listen to podcasts away from the computers that they would use to leave feedback. What feedback I have received has generally been positive. I’ve gotten some great encouragement from colleagues in the field. I’ve also received some positive messages from listeners who are not in academia. The main theme in their comments is that they love getting the intellectual stimulation. Some listeners have even offered me helpful, constructive feedback, though – as with course evaluations – some of those comments fall into the “you can’t please everyone” category.
AJW: Ditto. With one exception (you really can’t please everybody), the people who take the trouble to write in are extremely enthusiastic about the show. From our Web hosting statistics, I know that at least a few teachers and faculty members are using the show in their classrooms – by and large in chemistry classrooms rather than history of science or science studies classrooms. Soon after we launched the show we learned that the NSF had selected Distillations for a new online resources for teachers, which we found enormously gratifying.
What advice would you give prospective podcasters?
AJW: Just because we did a “big” podcast doesn’t mean that you have to. Many great podcasts are just a producer and a microphone. The most important thing is to think it through. How often will your show appear? How far ahead can you bank episodes? What blogging software will you use to support it? Do you care who listens, and if so, how will you find out? Inconsistency is the bugbear of many a podcast – it’s worth the effort to figure this stuff out before you get started.
EGM: Audra’s advice is excellent, and consistent with what a lot of experienced podcasters say. I’d add that while many podcasts are a half-hour in length (like mine), I have also seen listeners say that they would prefer to have more short podcasts available – 10-15 minutes in length. When you think about where people are likely to listen to podcasts – during a lunch break at their computer, during their commute to work, while getting some exercise or cleaning up the house – you can readily see the advantage of having a podcast that appears in more digestible chunks.
And finally, I’d encourage you to join us! Don’t think that just because there are a couple of science studies podcasts out there now, that the market is saturated. The world of podcasting is a wide open and very exciting field right now. Come play.
Both The Missing Link and Distillations are available through iTunes and other podcast directories. You can download shows from their Web sites: http://missinglinkpodcast.com and http://distillations.chemheritage.org.
Elizabeth Green Musselman is an associate professor of history at Southwestern University, a liberal arts college near Austin, Texas. She produces the monthly podcast The Missing Link and otherwise writes on the history of science in colonial South Africa.
Audra J. Wolfe is Editor in Chief of Chemical Heritage Magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania, where she is lecturing this fall on science and the media.