As soon as funding for the podcast has been secured, it will be produced in the up-coming year.
The trailer of the Sounding Crisis Podcast can already be heard here and (hopefully) on all other podcast platforms. You can also read a bit more about this research podcast project here.
The idea to combine this project with a podcast, which also serves as an integral part of the research, developed equally out of my background as a radio journalist, a sound studies researcher and scholar, and a university teacher,
Radio journalistic background
Initially, I was trained from 1995 to 1999 as a journalist at the Deutsche Journalistenschule, the German school for journalism in Munich. After that, I worked full-time for public radio stations in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for more than ten years. Therefore, also my work as a researcher is committed to three fundamental values and core beliefs, which I adopted and developed during my time as a journalist. These values and beliefs are: :
(1) Working towards "the best attainable version of the truth" (Carl Bernstein)
and constantly questioning power relations
(2) Making the voices of the people I talk to heard directly whenever possible
(3) Being publicly accountable for my work and its ethical standards
The comparably new audio format of the podcast, thanks to today's digital recording and publishing possibilities, makes the last two aspects much easier. The first aspect is what is,
was, and always will be hard work. I am committed to delivering it.
Sound Studies background
Thanks to a grant, I could travel to the USA in 2018 and talk to the protagonists of its young and booming podcast scene directly. On my private website, you can find my report about "Researching Podcasting in the US". My findings informed my Ph.D. thesis, academic and non-academic essays I wrote, and academic and non-academic talks I gave at conferences and congresses about podcasting. One of these talks was for the Kölner Kongress 2022 of the national public radio station Deutschlandfunk in Germany, which was later published by the same radio station as the radio essays "Artistic research on radio plays, podcasts, post-radio art".
A first attempt to use podcasts also practically in a scientific context was the podcast
"Sounds of Sound Studies" (2021), which I developed and produced together with other members of the working group "Auditive Kultur & Sound Studies" of the German Society for Media Studies.
Also, regarding my interest in decolonizing methodologies, the podcast, in my opinion, bears excellent potential, as the digital audio format makes it easy to "pass the mic" and discuss topics collectively from different angles.
Teaching background
In addition to this practical expertise, I also have taught the theory of podcasting at the University of Vienna (Austria): In the summer term of 2019, I taught the seminar "Audionarratologie: Hörspiel, Feature & Podcast" ("Audionarratology: Radio play, radio documentary & podcast) and in in the summer term of 2021 I taught the seminar "Podcast als Kunstform" (Podcast as an Art form). In practice, I have taught how to make podcasts in the spring term of 2018 at the Department of English of the University of Basel (Switzerland), where I helped to create the podcast "The Road to Brexit." In the summer term of 2019, I taught students of the University of Potsdam (Germany) how to make their climate activism podcast "Gras Wachsen Hören" ("To Hear Grass Grow").
Last but not least, I participated in the fall of 2021 in Science is wonderful!, an initiative by the European Commission to connect scientists and pupils. I had the great pleasure of talking via video to the students of a school class in my hometown Berlin (Germany) and presenting my project to them. Afterward, these students of the Beethoven Gymnasium produced a podcast about sustainability.
If you have any questions or wish to learn more about the Sounding Crisis podcast and my background, please write to me via my e-mail address at the University of Copenhagen: ania.mauruschat@hum.ku.dk