Oberlin 12/2/2019

1. PODCASTS & PEDAGOGY:
TEACHING WITH SOUND
STORIES
BROOKE BRYAN, ANTIOCH COLLEGE
ORAL HISTORY IN THE LIBERAL ARTS
WWW.OHLA.INFO | @WHYHERENOW

2. LOCATING MY PRACTICE
• Assistant Professor of Writing at Antioch College,
Chair of the Writing program, Convener of Creativity &
Story Strategic Planning Group
• Director, Oral History in the Liberal Arts (OHLA)
• In-depth journalist/public radio program coordinator
• Consider myself a fringe practitioner of oral history—
phenomenologist with an audio recorder (oral history
as phenomenological-hermeneutics or even art)
• PhD: Philosophy, Aesthetics, Art Theory (ABD)
• MA: Humanities, Oral History & Sound Theory
• BA: Humanities, World Classics

3. BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS
• Name
• Area of research, teaching, or practice that
you would explore integrating podcasting
into?
• Podcasts you listen to?

4. PODCASTS ARE MADE OF SOUND
STORIES
Audio Postcards/
Sonic IDs
Candid Conversations
Captured Concisely
Commentaries
Documentaries
Features
Longform
Oral History
Profiles
Soundscapes
Vox Pops
All of these types of
sound stories can be
integrated into podcasts

5. THERE IS PEDAGOGY TO FRAME
THE WORK
• Multimodal composition
• AAC&U High Impact Practices/High
Stakes Research/LEAP Rubrics (Integral
Learning)
• Research Skill Development Framework

6. BEST PRACTICES IN HIGHER ED
• Community Partnerships first
• Plan projects with an emphasis on method
• Use release forms to ensure consent &
copyright is secured
• Ensure editing and quality standards are built
into the syllabus
• Have realistic expectations

7. THE PODCAST PITCH
• Research and develop a story idea.
• Write a pitch paragraph – a succinct description of what your
story will be about, who we will hear from, and potential scenes
or episodes. Who should you interview? How many episodes?
Why should we care about this story?
• Radio programs/podcasts have very specific pitch guidelines.
You can sample some of them here: The Pitch Page at AIR

8. OUTREACH
• Build time and expectations into your syllabus for outreach to
a community partner or directly to a potential interviewee
• Ensure their timely follow-through or manage crucial
community contacts yourself

9. GETTING GOOD
SOUND
• Choose the right mic. Close mic
• Getting Good Ambient Sound
• 10 Tips for Using Audio
• Have good naming and file storage practices in place in
your syllabus

10. INTERVIEWING FOR
PODCASTS
• Choose a methodology
• Follow best practices
• Encourage students to ask tough questions
• Encourage narrators to tell concrete stories

11. BEST PRACTICES OF THE
ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION
• The standard for best practice
methodology, from project
conception to practice to archiving
• Prerequisite to major grant funding
• Co-constituted by a community of
practice that is ever changing
• Be fluent. Articulate any diversion.

12. BEST PRACTICES OF THE
ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION
“Oral history is distinguished from
other forms of interviewing by its
content and extent”
• “seek an in-depth account of personal experience and
reflections”
• “sufficient time allowed for the narrators to give their story the
fullness they desire”
• “grounded in reflections on the past as opposed to
commentary on purely contemporary events”

13. BEST PRACTICES OF THE
ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION
• “Oral historians insure that narrators voluntarily
give their consent to be interviewed and
understand that they can withdraw from the
interview or refuse to answer a question at any
time”
• “Narrators may give this consent by signing a
consent form or by recording an oral statement of
consent prior to the interview”
• “All interviews are conducted in accord with the
stated aims and within the parameters of the
consent”

14. INFORMED CONSENT
One cannot possibly interview another in the
name of oral history without going through a
rigorous informed consent process. The
burden is on you, the interviewer, to
communicate intentions
• go over brief project statement
• why they should be interviewed
• explicit understanding of how the interviews
will be used and shared*

15. THE DIGITAL ERA
COMPLICATES
INFORMED CONSENT
• Reveals a larger audience than your interviewee may
imagine for their recorded narrative
• Makes it hard to promise access restrictions
• Opens participants up to more social liabilities than ‘dark
archive’ days
• You’ll want to know what you intend to do with the
recorded interviews (archive/website/facebook
dissemination/personal harddrive with no access) before
you begin recording them (informed consent)

17. LEDE
REFLECTIVE TURN:
TOWARDS IMPLICATIONS
AND MEANING
PURPOSEFUL TURN:
TOWARDS THE TOPIC
DEPTH
QUESTIONS
EARLY
LIFE
FINAL
THOUGHTS

18. PODCASTING LEGALITIES:
INFORMED CONSENT VS.
COPYRIGHT

19. INFORMED CONSENT IS
NOT THE SAME AS
COPYRIGHT RELEASE
Informed consent is established through
conversation before the interview. Many project
partners or colleges will require you to get a
signature.
A release form is signed after the interview is
recorded. Most releases legally establish your
right to archive, publish, and make derivative
works from the interview, excepting
restrictions.

20. COPYRIGHT
INTERVIEWS ARE DUAL
COPYRIGHTED FROM THE MOMENT
OF CREATION
• Interviewees hold the copyright to their
interviews until and unless they transfer
those rights to an individual or institution.
• All use and dissemination of the interview
content must follow any restrictions the
narrator places upon it.

21. INFORMED CONSENT IS BOTH
LEGAL & ETHICAL WHEN
WORKING IN HIGHER ED
• Community practitioners operate by best
practices— ethical and voluntary
• Practitioners in higher ed adopt these
voluntary best practices AND must
consider federal human subjects research
laws

22. WHAT’S A HUMAN SUBJECT?
• A human subject is a living individual
about whom a research investigator
(whether a professional or a student)
obtains data through intervention or
interaction with the individual or from
individually identifiable information.

23. ARE YOU DOING RESEARCH?
• New federal guidelines exempt oral
history, journalism, and historical
biographies from human subjects law
and IRB oversight (1/2018)
• This new guideline holds that oral
history isn’t research, because when
we collect individual narratives we
are not seeking to generalize
knowledge

24. THE PLAN/THE
SCRIPT
• Build time and expectations into your syllabus for an iterative
rough plan as the interviews are undertaken, to help students
track and build the storyline
• Ensure students are dropping rough interview files into a drive
for your review
• This plan is a living document and will become the script

25. SOUND EDITING
• Time consuming. Plan for it.
• Rough cuts, ordering, refine. Add narration. Listen together.
Edit and do it again. Feedback is crucial.
• Hindenburg Journalist or Media Lab workstation

26. PROJECT EXAMPLES &
EDITING
DEMONSTRATION