Podcast Journalism

David O. Dowling critically examines how podcasting and its evolving conventions are transforming reporting—and even reshaping journalism’s core functions and identity.

David O. Dowling is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. He is the author of several books, including Immersive Longform Storytelling: Media, Technology, Audience (2019) and The Gamification of Digital Journalism: Innovation in Journalistic Storytelling (2021).

Nikki Usher, author of News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism:
This book provides the definitive account of the most revolutionary and exciting new form of digital media—podcasting. Dowling’s richly textured book is a powerful reminder that the same social, cultural, and industry incentives that have undermined journalism’s democratic potential also threaten podcasting—showing us a Janus-faced future where the revolutionary potential to give voice to marginalized groups seeking justice and community is juxtaposed against true-crime sensationalism and the rebirth of audio-driven far-right conspiracy mongering.

Mia Lindgren, coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Radio and Podcast Studies:
Dowling’s Podcast Journalism is the first comprehensive book to engage critically with both the opportunities and the risks associated with audio storytelling packaged in such a seductive and engaging way. This is an essential read in the age of podcasting.

Scott A. Eldridge II, author of Online Journalism from the Periphery: Interloper Media and the Journalistic Field:
Podcast Journalism offers a thorough study of podcasts as commerce, as culture, and as a sometimes-controversial auditory turn in journalism. Extensive detail centers this robust discussion, with Dowling giving space to explore what podcasts’ emergence has meant for how we situate narrative journalism in our ears and within our worlds.

John Biewen, host and producer, Scene on Radio podcast:
For all the chatter about the rapid rise of podcasting, David O. Dowling makes a powerful case that we’ve underestimated the medium’s impact on journalism. Will serious, narrative podcast journalism be allowed to flourish, perhaps helping to save our democracy, or will profit seekers snuff out its promise?