SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;1 This thesis has been approved by The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Journalism __________________________ Dr. Elizabeth Hendrickson Associate Professor, Journalism Thesis Adviser ___________________________ Dr. Bernhard Debatin Director of Studies, Journalism ___________________________ Cary Roberts Frith Interim Dean, Honors Tutorial College 1 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;2 Ohio University “SUPERHERO WOMEN, EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT”: A HISTORICAL PODCAST SERIES By Emily St. Amour A Thesis Submitted to the Honors Tutorial College of Ohio University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Journalism May 2019 2 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;3 Table of Contents SCHOLARLY ESSAY……………………………………………………………………………2 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...4 LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………………………5 COLLABORATION WITH ATHENS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS…………………14 ETHICAL CHALLENGES AND CONCEPTS…………………………………………16 REFLECTIONS………………………………………………………………………….28 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………..33 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………..35 PROFESSIONAL PROJECT……………………………………………………………………41 EPISODE 1 SCRIPTS…………………………………………………………………...41 EPISODE 2 SCRIPTS…………………………………………………………………...67 EPISODE 3 SCRIPTS…………………………………………………………………...81 EPISODE 4 SCRIPTS………………………………………………………………….107 Streamable audio files of Superhero Women, ExtraOrdinary Impact podcast episodes and additional content associated with the series can be found at https://superherowomen.home.blog/ 3 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;4 Scholarly Essay Introduction Podcasts, when done effectively, are brilliant mediums for storytelling, and I’ve been an avid listener since my freshman year seminar when I was introduced to the Radiolab podcast. I was immediately hooked. It is understandable then, why nearly two years later, I was excited to learn that we would be using episodes of More Perfect, a Radiolab spinoff, in a course called The Politics of Law and Sexuality. More Perfect uncovered the stories behind United States Supreme Court cases. I was drawn in by the beautiful, rich auditory experience, and the moving stories told. Some of the blandest sounding court cases or legal decisions became undeniably, and at times heart-wrenchingly, human. I believe podcasts can convey stories about the past in a way that no other medium is quite able to replicate. As I got closer to my senior year, I began connecting the dots of my interests and my educational experience. I love history and have a passion for education. I had been studying women in history and had made a podcast about the gender binary for my final project in my Politics of Law and Sexuality tutorial that was based primarily on historical information. Such reflections eventually led to my decision to create a podcast about women in history. My goal was to make a podcast tailored for use in United States (US) History courses at the high school level, and my hope was that the podcast would make it easier for teachers to incorporate more information about the important contributions that women have made to the development of US history and its intellectual and cultural foundations. I used storytelling techniques to illustrate concepts and incorporated expert interviews, primarily with scholars who research these individuals, to create this podcast. This approach 4 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;5 incorporated my journalistic training in interviewing and storytelling techniques. I also incorporated audio segments created by students at Athens High School (AHS), which I detail further in later sections of this paper. It proved an incredibly humbling experience to contemplate the considerable breadth of notable women in US history and narrow my featured group to a select few figures. I decided to focus on the time frame from about 1850 to 1930, and then chose my individuals. I eventually settled on Jane Addams, Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, and Margaret Sanger, although I strongly considered including Jeanette Rankin, Mother Jones, and Alice Paul. I concluded that it would be more reasonable to stick with four individuals considering the time frame I had available to complete the project. Regardless, the contributions of each of these women illustrate important themes of the time period, and by telling their life stories and chronicling their impact, I hope to add texture to listeners’ experience of US history. Literature Review The Promise of Podcasts The journalistic form of a podcast, which I employed for my professional project, has grown increasingly popular over the last ten years. Today, 51 percent of the US population ages 12 and up have listened to a podcast according to the 2019 Podcast Consumer report created by Edison Research (“The Podcast Consumer,” 2019). This compares to 33 percent in 2015 and only 11 percent in 2006. Additionally, a good deal of this growth has occurred in the age group 5 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;6 which I am targeting for my podcast, listeners between the ages of 12 and 24 (“The Podcast Consumer,” 2019). It has long been acknowledged that one of the strengths of podcasts is that they, unlike radio, are not bound to the constraints of time and place. Podcasts were initially conceptualized as a form of “audioblogging” (Quirk, 2015). The origin of the term “podcast” is often pinpointed to 2004 when Ben Hammersley coined the term in an article in The Guardian. However, in 2005 when Apple iTunes offered over 3,000 free podcasts, this relatively new medium became more- widely accessible (Quah, 2017). This was the first step in podcasting developing from “the nichiest, wonkiest content platforms” into a “star-studded, self-contained media ecosystem with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual advertising revenue,” (Quah, 2017, p.1). Podcasting was appealing to content creators because it allowed them to sidestep many of the demands that limited traditional media. According to an article in The Guardian from 2004— the cusp of the first boom of podcasting— early podcasting pioneer Christopher Lydon saw the flexibility of podcasting as one of its major benefits. Lydon is the creator of one of the first and longest running podcasts, Open Source, which is described on its website as “an American conversation with global attitude.” The author states, “With no publisher to appease, no editor to report to, and an abundance of cheap tools, [Christopher Lydon] says he feels unleashed to work directly with his audience,” (Hammersley, 2004, p.1). Podcasting has been described as the “latest in a long line of technologies developed to democratize communication” (Quah, 2017, p.3). This observation about the democratizing nature of podcasting has been noted by scholarly sources as early as 2006. Media scholar Richard Berry notes that unlike traditional radio, “No one person owns the technology and so it is free to listen and create content, thereby 6 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;7 departing from the traditional model of ‘gate-kept’ media and production tools,” (Berry, 2006, p.146). Podcasting has less stringent barriers of entry than traditional radio, from which it derives many of its main features. The basic tools to make and release a podcast, such as sound recording and editing applications, can be accessed by anyone with a smartphone and internet connection. Because of this, Berry argues that podcasting is a disruptive technology. The barrier between producer and consumer is lowered. Podcasting is “a classic ‘horizontal’ media form: producers are consumers and consumers become producers and engage in conversations with each other,” (Berry, 2006, pg. 146). Yet, this is not the only difference between traditional radio and podcasting. Michele Hilmes (2013) noted three main differences “materiality,” “mobility,” and “globalism” (p. 43). Podcasts introduced the unique development that, unlike traditional broadcast radio, their content is not ephemeral. Given that an individual has a device that can download and play audio and an internet connection, they can download a podcast, play it, pause it, rewind, and listen as many times as they please (Hilmes, 2013). In this way, a medium which has its roots in radio has been made more “material.” And, what’s more, listeners can choose practically any location they wish to listen to the content, making it more mobile. Content that is produced in one location can relatively easily be consumed in another town, state, or even nation. These changes, but especially “materiality” has opened the door for radio-like content to change and expand. Podcasts have their roots in radio and many radio programs have deeply influenced the genre. This American Life, Studio360, and Radiolab are a few which have sparked the new “golden age” of the radio documentary (Biewen, 2010). Podcasts mix “elements of journalism and documentary with drama and subjective reflection...constructing empathetic, character- driven accounts of realities,” (Salvati, 2015, p. 234). It therefore moves ideas from the general 7 SUPERHERO WOMEN ;;;;;8 and abstract to the individual. Podcast creators have used the medium, which tends toward a sense of intimacy, to add a human element to a wide variety of topics. Podcasts and radio share characteristics, practices, and institutions, however, as Toni Sellas (2019) notes they have gradually developed their own cultural practices as they have expanded beyond the radio industry and into such areas as education, marketing, arts, and public relations. The development of norms and practices that are unique from those found in radio means that podcasts have