Third Podcasting: new possibilities for activist audio documentary

by J. Shane

 

Over the past seven years, the media landscape has seen a boom in podcasting. What was once a marginal means of content distribution has become recognized as a lucrative investment opportunity; large and dedicated audience potential, relatively cheap production costs, and integrated advertising slots all providing solid profit margins. Recent years have seen corporations like Amazon and Spotify all but monopolize the industry by purchasing smaller networks and shows, and most major podcast production companies have both editorial and ‘branded’ wings. And in 2021, major film festivals Tribeca and Sundance jumped on the bandwagon, offering a roster of new awards and development opportunities for podcasters. Podcasting has officially made it to Hollywood.

While the aesthetics of mainstream podcasting emerges from a long history of talk radio and documentary audio features, this ‘golden age’ of podcasting is characterized by the prominence of narrative non-fiction work primed for popularity with linearity, cliff-hangers, and anecdotes you can drop at a dinner party. While publicly-funded broadcasting is underpinned by journalistic mandates, thus a contractual obligation to inform and educate the public, the on-demand nature of podcasting, paired with privately-funded corporate engines, makes it particularly tailored to pumping out content designed to hook and entertain listeners. Yet as with all media forms, what’s most buzzy and critically acclaimed tends to overshadow work which is more socially-driven or iconoclast.

While reading Teshome Gabriel’s article, “Towards a critical theory of Third World films,” and Michael Chanan’s “The Changing Geography of Third Cinema,” I found that the categories of first, second, and third cinema map onto the major waves in narrative non-fiction podcasts which have emerged over the medium’s growth period. As a podcast producer, I have noticed— perhaps anecdotally— that the podcast industry seems to suffer from an insularity and short-sightedness in its criticism. While looking to existing podcasts and broadcast history as sources of inspiration and comparison, it rarely engages with screen-based, literary, or theatrical canons or contemporaries in its formal considerations. For this reason, I was keen to reflect more deeply on how the framework of Third Cinema could illuminate trends in the narrative non-fiction podcasting space, and to identify formal distinctions between popular— and mostly liberal— podcasts, and those actively engaged with social justice struggles. 

But first, a brief (and definitely over-simplified!) overview of some landmarks of the podcasting boom.

 

First and Second Podcasting

Season 1 of Serial in 2014 has largely been identified as the beginning of the podcasting boom. Although podcasts were around for 9 years before that, the listener numbers for this show were comparable to popular TV shows of the same period. It was a weekly series that investigated the 1999 murder of a Korean-American high-school student. Following Serial’s unprecedented success, the ‘true crime’ genre of podcasting took off and is to this day, podcasting’s most popular genre.

Simultaneously, more generalized shows— non-fiction storytelling and reporting tempered through ‘relatable’ (read: cis, white, middle-class, male etc) hosts, like This American Life and Radiolab— became more established as canonical podcasts (although these shows also had legacies as radio shows). These were then followed by the New York Times’ The Daily, a narrative-style news podcast. Together, these ‘box-office hits’ could be said to represent the ‘First Cinema’ equivalent of podcasting. 

One could argue that Second Cinema maps onto the wave of host-driven podcasts that launched a couple years later. In 2017, popular series like S-Town and Missing Richard Simmons were lauded by critics for their unique writing and the compelling individuals whose lives they explored in detail. Although framed as documentary, both shows are focalized through the curiosity, positionality, and intentions of their hosts, acting upon their subject rather than watching their lives unfold.

Despite critical success, Serial Season 1, S-Town, and Missing Richard Simmons all faced backlash within the media and podcasting industry in the wake of their popularity. Serial was critiqued for treating the crime as exceptional while lacking a systemic and intersectional critique. Similarly, S-Town and Missing Richard Simmons were criticized for a lack of accountability or fair representation to their subjects. 

 

Towards a Third Podcasting

This wave of critique gave rise to new shows seeking to interrupt these short-sighted representational tropes. Serial took the criticism of Season 1, and tried out a more systemic analysis in Season 3. Rather than focusing on the details of a central event or character’s experience, it revolves around a social institution— a courthouse over the course of a year, reporting on its proceedings in vignettes to explore how the justice system interacts with race and class. Similarly, CBC’s Finding Cleo was a true-crime show praised for how it subverted the traditional format of the genre. Purportedly about investigating the death of a young Indigenous girl, this story was a device used to explore the repressed history and legacy of colonial genocide in Canada. 

In recent years, more and more shows with explicitly social mandates have emerged. These shows are predominantly independently funded, explicit in their social-justice goals, and display a self-reflexivity that allows the process to be reflected in the product. Additionally, the makers of these shows are telling stories about struggles which they are a part of, or actively working with/for their subjects for justice. This, I believe, is the emergence of Third Podcasting. 

A couple of standout shows:

• The independently-funded The View From Somewhere was created by trans journalist Lewis Raven Wallace. This show deconstructs the notion of ‘journalistic objectivity’, unpacking the construction of the idea of objectivity in the history of journalism, and how neutrality is the privilege of the oppressor. 
• The Heart’s “No” series explored the grey areas of consent through the host Kaitlin Prest’s personal lens, using a hybrid of documentary and fiction. These shows interrogate systems of power in nuanced, evocative ways. 
• The 2020 show Somebody, which deals with police accountability in Chicago, was hosted by the mother of a young Black man shot by police. This show was funded by a non-profit rather than a broadcasting institution, but its critical success, despite the ‘subjectivity’ of its host, shows how much progress has been made when it comes to expanding the vocabulary that is acceptable in podcasting.
• Scene on Radio out of the Centre for Documentary Studies at Duke University has released several salient series that critique power structures, from whiteness to colonialism, to the concept of democracy. 

As Gabriel explains in his article, however, Third Cinemas and Third Podcasting exist on a spectrum. While the above shows are designed to inform on and explore social issues through decolonial/antiracist/feminist lenses, they do not necessarily demand participation or action from their listeners, which aesthetically and conceptually is a characteristic of the most radical films of the Third Cinema movement. Yet I believe that two recent podcasts from Canada do. 

 

Crackdown and We Are Not the Virus

We Are Not the Virus (WANTV) and Crackdown both have origin stories, methods of production, editorial choices, and distribution strategies that set them apart from other shows that I have categorized above under the ‘Third Podcasting’ heading because they emerge directly from activist struggles.

Crackdown is a monthly podcast out of Vancouver hosted by Garth Mullins. Mullins is a drug user and activist who is actively engaged in the movement to decriminalize drugs and push for life-saving policy changes in Canada. Although Mullins has a journalism background, his approach is more akin to activism than traditional reporting. 

 

On their website, Crackdown writes: “Government isn’t doing enough to address the crisis, and the media is letting them get away with it. So, we’re making our own media.” 

In keeping with this, the first episode of the series does something I’ve never heard in a podcast before: it ends with a manifesto:

 

Mullins said of the show, “We’re taking the traditional tools of journalism and putting them in the hands of people who use drugs like me, and trying to cover this like a war instead of a force of nature, like something it’s intentional, decided by governments, and happening in our communities.” A deliberately systemic framing, the creators have a radical mission for the show, largely because they have active stakes in its effectiveness. Rather than reporting on issues because they are trending or interesting, they understand that debunking myths and breaking down the issues is a necessary element of both protest and transformation of unjust systems. From their concurrent organizing work, they know that knowledge-sharing builds capacity among a population that is systematically disenfranchised by a lack of transparency. The second episode of the series, “Change Intolerance” goes even further: it ends with a list of demands, commanding active participation of listeners. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, We Are Not The Virus is a 4-part documentary series that emerged during the pandemic about encampment life and the housing crisis in Toronto. Each episode draws on a different element—water, wind, fire and earth. As of May 2021, “Water” and “Wind” have been released. Like Crackdown, the podcast comes out of a broader organizing initiative: the Encampment Support Network, or ESN, an ad hoc group that came together during the pandemic to provide basic aid to people living in the homeless encampments that grew out of the crisis. Producers Aliya Pabani and Allie Graham wanted to create a counter-narrative to one-dimensional mainstream media representations about homelessness and encampments in the city. In tandem with ESN, they decided that rather than speaking to ‘experts’ on homelessness— city councillors, social works, parks ambassadors etc— they would create a show built on relationships with people living in encampments to understand and translate how city responses to the crisis have been ineffective. 

The process of creating both Crackdown and WANTV stems from careful community consultation and engagement. Crackdown hosts editorial meetings with its group of board members—all who are drug-user-activists, and paid the equivalent of the production team. They ask, “What’s important to you? What do you see happening around you? What’s not being covered?” Then for each episode, the production team and at least one member of the editorial team with relevant lived experience makes a plan. They set production goals, loop people in as needed, and eventually, they play the completed episode at the headquarters of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), where anyone can drop by, listen, and give feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WANTV also has an editorial team that changes depending on who is involved in the episode. They are a more recent and decentralized group than VANDU, but wherever possible, subjects are given the opportunity to listen to make sure they agree with how they have been represented in the edit, and people within ESN with close relationships with the subjects represented also give feedback.

Mullins, Pabani, and Graham all asserted that creating the work collaboratively in this way isn’t just an ethical consideration; it also makes the work stronger. In order to ensure that the shows are an extension of the activism that surrounds them, their commitment to gathering feedback means they are able to respond to the most pressing needs of the communities being represented. The makers also explained that independent publishing and financing (through crowdfunding and academic grants for Crackdown), is what allows these shows the freedom of their radical perspectives. 

What stands out about both shows is the way in which they embody community struggle. Although we meet individuals, these shows do not revolve or neatly encapsulate any one person’s life story. Episodes are hosted but are not host-driven. They feature subjects, but the subjects have editorial agency. Systems are critiqued. Tape is allowed to breathe more than in podcasts where a sense of presence and humanity is substituted for the economy of information. 

There is so much more to say about both of these shows, in terms of aesthetics, content, structure, and voice. Yet for now, I will end here, saying that I believe that these two shows represent this burgeoning medium coming into its own as a tool for political struggle within movements. Terrestrial radio and transmission-based audio have a history of being used for activism, yet the cost-effectiveness, ease of distribution, and even the way in which a microphone is less invasive (and potentially more evocative) than a camera, make it a potent medium for artful, nuanced, and radical approaches to documenting and mobilizing around political movements. 

 

Resources:

‘Third Podcasts’ mentioned here:

Crackdown: “Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research. Each episode will tell the story of a community fighting for their lives. It’s also about solutions, justice for those we have lost, and saving lives.” 

Somebody: “When Shapearl Wells’s son Courtney is found outside a Chicago police station with a fatal bullet wound, Shapearl immediately distrusts the official narrative. So she launches her own investigation into her son’s murder and teams up with journalists from the Invisible Institute to confront the cops and find the truth about Courtney’s death. Somebody explores the racial disparities and turbulent relationship between law enforcement and citizens in one of America’s largest cities.”

Serial Season 3: “Serial wanted to tackle the whole criminal justice system. To do that we figured we’d need to look at something different: ordinary cases. So we did. Inside these ordinary cases we found the troubling machinery of the criminal justice system on full display.” 

The View From Somewhere: “Trust in journalists is at an all-time low, but the work of journalism matters more than ever. And traditional “objectivity” may be hurting, rather than helping. All journalists have a view from somewhere, and ”objective” journalism often upholds status quo thinking and reinforces racism, sexism, and transphobia. Host Lewis Raven Wallace was fired from the public radio show Marketplace in 2017 for saying just that. In the years since, Lewis has dug into the history of “objectivity,” who it serves, and who it excludes. The View from Somewhere tells the stories of journalists who have resisted “objectivity” and stood up for justice, and envisions new approaches to truth and integrity in journalism.”

We Are Not the Virus; “We Are Not the Virus is a four-part documentary podcast about life inside Toronto’s encampments. Each episode draws on a different element—water, wind, fire and earth—to talk about encampment life, local histories and the creative ways residents are making a home in one of the most expensive cities in the world. A project of the Encampment Support Network.” 

 

Other ‘Third Podcasting’ or adjacent podcasts/networks worth checking out:

Constellations | Ear Hustle | Scene on Radio | Finding Cleo | Have You Heard George’s Podcast? | Indian and Cowboy Network | Moonface | No | Radioart106 | Radio Papesse | Sound Africa

 

Works Cited

Interviews with Garth Mullins, Sam Fenn, Aliya Pabani, and Allie Graham

Boynton, Robert S., The View from Somewhere: A Review, RadioDoc Review, 6(1), 2020.

Chanan, Michael. “The Changing Geography of Third Cinema.” Screen, vol. 38, no. 4, 1997, pp. 372–388.

Dirks, Sandhya. (2020) ‘Listening is an Act of Power’, Barbican (Soundhouse), 28 October [online]. Available at: https://sites.barbican.org.uk/soundhouse-listeningpower/ (Accessed May 1, 2021).

Macklem, Michelle, and Andrew Leland. “The Art of Noise: A History of Experimental Radio.” 2018 Third Coast International Audio Festival. Third Coast, Chicago, www.thirdcoastfestival.org/feature/art-of-noise-a-history-of-experimental-radio.

Price, Neroli, Narrative Justice: Somebody Delivers the Answers that Police Will Not, RadioDoc Review, 6(1), 2020.

Walker, Connie, and Jennifer Fowler. “Beyond True Crime: Using This Exploding Genre to Tell a Bigger Story.” 2018 Third Coast International Audio Festival. Third Coast International Audio Festivsl, Chicago, www.thirdcoastfestival.org/feature/beyond-true-crime-using-this-exploding-genre-to-tell-a-bigger-story.

Weinman, Sarah. (2020) ‘The Future Of True Crime Will Have To Be Different’, Buzzfeed News (Reader), 27 July [online]. Available at: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahweinman/the-future-of-true-crime-black-lives-matter (Accessed 1 May 2021).