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From Storytelling to Storylistening: How the Hit Podcast S-Town Reconfigured the Production and Reception of Narrative Nonfiction

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From Storytelling to Storylistening: How the Hit Podcast S-Town Reconfigured the Production and Reception of Narrative Nonfiction From Storytelling to Storylistening: How the Hit Podcast S-Town Reconfigured the Production and Reception of Narrative Nonfiction Ella Waldmann Université de Paris, France. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract The 2017 hit podcast S-Town has been hailed for inaugurating a new genre, the audio nonfiction novel. Drawing from the recent evolutions in the field of media-conscious narratology (Ryan and Thon; DeMair), this article envisions creative nonfiction podcasts as narrative constructs. Previous research has thus far tended to assimilate such original podcast productions to conventional radio programs, seldom taking into account the specificity of the podcast as a new medium. This article explores the implications of this innovation through the case study of S-Town. By reclaiming the model of the novel, S-Town’s innovative load paradoxically relies on a return to traditional written forms. But in terms of broadcasting and reception, the podcast introduces a change of paradigm insofar as it offers a more immersive and interactive listening experience. This experience is in turn embedded in the creative process, and narrative nonfiction becomes as much storytelling as storylistening. Keywords: podcasting; audio storytelling; S-Town; narrative nonfiction. https://doi.org/10.26262/exna.v0i4.7913 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Fifteen years after the term ‘podcast’ was coined by journalist Ben Hammersley in reference to the online radio practices that were budding in the early 2000s, podcasts have become ubiquitous.1 A recent study showed that in 2020, more than one third of Americans listened to podcasts at least once a month (Edison Research). The trajectory of podcasting from niche phenomenon to mainstream medium has been thoroughly documented by a growing body of literature on the subject (Bottomley; Berry, “Golden Age”; Bonini; Llinares et al.; McHugh “How”). Multiple factors can account for this success story, but researchers from the emerging field of podcast studies agree that the medium reached its maturity in 2014, the year that concomitantly saw the launch of Apple’s iOs8 inbuilt Podcasts app2 and the release of the Serial podcast.3 In the first season of Serial, producer Sarah Koenig reopened a murder case from 1999 1 Podcasts are digital audio files, typically episodes of a spoken-word series, which can be downloaded from the Internet to a computer or a mobile device and listened to at the user’s convenience. Since its early stages as a medium reserved to tech-savvy users, various technological innovations have made podcasting increasingly accessible and widespread. Because of its, generally, low production costs and circumvention of broadcasting regulation and censorship, it is considered a disruptive medium. Most traditional radio networks flocked to podcasting as a parallel way of broadcasting their programs, while simultaneously producing native podcasts. Podcasts now cover an extremely wide spectrum of formats and content, catering to virtually all types of audiences. 2 By building a podcatcher into its iOs8 version, Apple overcame one of the last impediments that was slowing down the process of downloading and listening to podcasts. This technological innovation was instrumental in popularizing the medium, increasing its portability and therefore fully integrating it into people’s daily lives (Morris and Patterson). 3 Readers can access the podcast at serialpodcast.org/ Ex-Centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media; Issue IV, 2020; eISSN: 2585-3538. ©2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-SA 4.0). See creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ From Storytelling to Storylistening 29 and told the story of her investigation week-by-week. This true crime podcast, a spin-off of the acclaimed radio program This American Life, was not only met with unprecedented—and heretofore unmatched—popular success; it is also unanimously considered as the first major creative turning point in the history of this young medium, inaugurating a new era for audio storytelling.4 In 2017, producers Julie Snyder from the Serial team and Brian Reed from This American Life released a new podcast called S-Town.5 This original production set new records and even higher standards in terms of content and formal sophistication. S-Town tells the true story of reporter and radio producer Brian Reed’s encounter with John B. McLemore, a horologist living in the small town of Woodstock, Alabama. McLemore first writes an email to Reed, asking him to come to his hometown—which he describes as a backward “S(hit)-Town”—to investigate an alleged case of covered up crime and corruption. After a year of email exchanges and phone conversations, during which Reed becomes better acquainted with McLemore’s larger-than-life personality and garrulous prose, the reporter travels to Alabama to meet him in person. McLemore’s accusations turn out to be a false lead. Yet, Reed grows more and more intrigued by this man who restores antique clocks, lives with his ninety-year-old mother and a dozen dogs on an estate where he had a gigantic hedge maze built, and who despite expressing his antagonism with Woodstock and its inhabitants in long, flowery, rants, never resolved to leave the place. A few weeks after this first trip, with the podcast still in production, Reed learns that McLemore has committed suicide. He therefore decides to devote his story to this man, the mysteries surrounding his life, and the reasons that led him to end it. When the podcast won a Peabody Award, the highest distinction for radio and podcast productions, the jury stated that “S-Town br[oke] new ground for the medium by creating the first audio novel, a non-fiction biography constructed in the style and form of a 7-chapter novel” (Blanchard). The podcast’s novelistic nature resides primarily in its construction and distribution: the seven episodes were uploaded simultaneously, as seven ‘chapters’ of a finite work—a mode of release that traditional broadcasting would not have allowed for—and in the strong inter- and metatextuality that pervades the entire production. Paradoxically, the jury’s statement implies that S-Town’s innovative power relies on a return to the older, more established standards of the novel. By underlining the podcast’s novelistic “style and form,” it confirmed Kris Markman’s statement that “podcasting is a platform that has breathed new life into established . tropes and forms” (241). This article examines the implications of the podcast’s innovation in terms of narrative practices for the genre of narrative nonfiction. So far, research on the links between podcasts and narrative practices have mainly focused on S-Town’s predecessor Serial and how it revolutionized the medium (McCracken; Baelo-Allué; Hancock and McMurtry; Ora; Berry, “Golden Age” and “Serial”; Spinelli and Dann, Podcasting). However, S-Town is so explicitly 4 Andrew J. Bottomley defines audio storytelling as “a broad category of fiction and nonfiction programming united by the use of narrative and other dramatic techniques, as well as a composed sonic aesthetic” (Sound Streams 175), a category that is sometimes also referred to as “crafted audio” (McHugh, "How"). 5 Readers can access the podcast at stownpodcast.org 30 Ella Waldmann inscribed in the novelistic tradition, and especially in the lineage of the nonfiction novel, that it deserves to be analyzed on its own grounds. Moreover, some of the preceding analyses tended to assimilate podcasts to conventional radio programs without taking into account the specificity of podcasts as a new medium. Yet, podcasting introduces a crucial change of paradigm in terms of production, distribution and reception, which needs to be interrogated when dealing with such works. Narrative nonfiction podcasts in general, and S-Town in particular, are not prototypical popular culture products; they are a case in point in the debate around new media textualities in a mass-mediated popular culture. Most scholars agree with Richard Berry in saying that podcasting reached its “golden age” with the release of Serial in 2014 (“Part of the Establishment” 170). Together with Fox and Llinares, he claims that thanks to Serial, podcasts “crossed over into mainstream consciousness”6 (6). The authors’ implication is that before Serial, podcasts were still considered a niche phenomenon, a subculture primarily based on targeting specialist audiences—a practice also known as narrowcasting. Serial was the first of podcasts to reach a much broader and diversified audience. While it is difficult to assess whether or not podcasts such as S-Town and Serial belong to the unstable category of ‘popular culture,’ for which many conflicting definitions and criteria coexist, it is worth considering their ambiguous position on the spectrum of popular works. If we consider their audience ratings, both Serial and S-Town fall under the category of popular works. Serial is still one of the world’s most downloaded podcasts today. Altogether, the three seasons of Serial had topped 420 million downloads in December 2018 (Quah, “Serial”). S- Town certainly benefitted from the success of its predecessor. Four days after its release, it had been downloaded ten million times—ratings that even Serial had not attained
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