Podcasting the Archive

The purpose of the empirical work discussed in this paper was to explore the theme of audience engagement with digitised archive data in different formats. A comparison is drawn between experiences of interacting with an archive presented as a narrative non-fiction audio performance and the same core material displayed as online text and images. The findings derive from an analysis of data collected in interviews with participants familiar with both versions of the archive: (1) as a podcast series entitled Diary of the War, and (2) photographs in the LornaL journal on the Blipfoto platform. The interviewees exhibited greater levels of engagement with the podcast series as a form of entertainment that prompts learning and generates emotional responses. They also found the podcast series a more flexible platform for engagement. They believed that the Blipfoto journal offers greater affordances in respect of access to contextual information, and authenticity. Key to these findings is the addition of contextual resources to the core archive in each presentation. This contribution provides insights on the role of curation in promoting audience engagement with digital presentations of collections, and the extent to which archive material in digitised formats should be left to ‘speak for itself’

Art · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Series (stratigraphy) · Sociology · Television series · Visual arts · Geology · Radio, Podcasts, and Digital Media