Podcast Blog

     National Park After Dark is a podcast on Spotify, where two friends share interesting stories about tragedies in National Parks, and the lessons that can be learned from them. Because of their love of the outdoors and nature, they also touch on safety tips and information about conservational efforts. They use a blend of conversational and storytelling styles of speech as they talk to their audience, which keeps the podcast engaging for listeners.



    My main reason for listening to this podcast is because I enjoy it. Although these stories may seem dark or sad to some, they are interesting to me. At the same time, information is provided about each park where the stories take place, so I also get to learn historical and geographical facts. Sometimes when discussing cases that are unsolved, the women have included contact information for anyone who may have any information to help the case. They are not telling chilling stories just for the sake of entertainment, but also for education and to reach out to the public for help. On one side there is one speaker who tells the story that is the subject of that specific podcast. They create a setting, introduce the "characters" of the story, describe the happenings in detail, and then include the outcome. Despite the subject matter, both women who run the podcast speak in a calm, conversational tone, which make it soothing to listen to. They keep the discussion flowing in a very natural way. They converse between each other, adding their own opinions and experiences, and aid listeners to not hear what they're being told, but to also think about the situation, ask questions, and learn from it. I feel like a podcast like this is the perfect way to communicate this sort of information, as opposed to a video representation, because we already have plenty of shows and movies about horrific, real-life experiences. Sometimes we get so distracted in the horror of the video aspect that it changes the way we see the situation. I believe it feels less real in a sense, more dramatized in an entertaining way, whereas listening to the story and getting all of the facts and analysis about it can help us to mentally process the information more efficiently. 

    I feel like the delivery technique the women in this podcast use, the combination of storytelling and conversation, is very effective. The audience is getting entertainment from the story. While listening, you can use your imagination to piece things together and form pictures in your own mind. Stopping to have conversation in between parts of the story allows listeners to take a step back and take a breath from the tragedy. Pull away from the enjoyment and distraction of a story and remember that what you're listening to was a true event. These things really happened, and we can not only learn from it but maybe someone out there can actually help in some way. For example, in "Episode 1: Unsolved. Shenandoah and Acadia National Park" the speakers stop at the end and reveal that law enforcement is still keeping it as an open investigation and hope that in continuing to cover the story that one day they may finally discover enough information to bring justice and closure. They not only reach out to the audience for help but include the FBI division and phone number to report possible leads to. This can make listeners feel like they might be able to have an impact in some way, that maybe they may hear something or know something that could aid in the solving of one of these stories. 



    I plan to incorporate these techniques used in the podcast I chose by not only providing information, but to also include my own experiences and opinions. I want to motivate my audience to think for themselves and ask questions, and to not get so distracted by entertainment purposes that they fail to grasp the realness of the situations around us, the effects they can have on us, and how we can affect them. The availability and exposure to podcasts have continued to increase over the years, meaning we can have a real effect on our audience in creating this sort of outlet. In our reading Business and Professional Communication, various types of interviews are discussed. As written, a persuasive interview is "a conversation intended to affect your belief, opinion, or behavior." (Floyd and Cardon) Creating a podcast can be a way of conducting a persuasive interview because we are not only trying to inform our audience, but we are also trying to convince them to believe what we are saying to be true. We want to them to listen and share in our opinions so that, in agreeing with our content, they are encouraged to continue listening to us. On the other side, we are also trying to convince the audience of who we are. Not only to listen and agree with what we're saying, but also to trust and believe in who we are portraying ourselves to be.


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