Are you a sociologist who loves podcasts? Do you kind of like The Annex, but wish their episodes were better? Would you like to see more podcast programming about particular people, places, issues, or ideas? Would you like to learn how to make a podcast of your own?
We are approaching colleagues to host episodes of The Annex. We will guide you through the process, help you develop a podcast episode of your own, give you a copy to use as you please, and maybe add it to our fall season.
Warning to Sociology Graduate Students: Podcasting will not get you a job, or really help your career much in any way. It is best to treat it as a hobby. Publications and grant-making are all that matter in this business.
Background
One of our goals at The Annex Sociology Podcast has been to platform new topics, ideas, and voices in the sociology discipline. The Annex is also a field site in which the team at the Queens Podcast Lab engages in podcast-related R&D. In pursuit of both goals, we inviting guest hosts to take the lead in developing and hosting an episode of The Annex, and collaborating with these guest hosts to establish and refine a “best practices” framework for the conception, development, and execution of a conversation-format podcast episode.
What is Involved?
Begin by reviewing the current edition of The Annex Hosting Guide. Download it here:
We will then correspond or meet to discuss the particulars of your episode, and recruit and schedule up to two additional discussants. About a week before we record, we have a back and forth on questions or topics to discuss. Then the best part: recording day arrives, and everyone chats for an hour or two on a Zoom-like web platform. After everyone signs off, you email me a ~200 word and ~15 word summary of what you took to be the central theme that you would like to use to frame the discussion. The next step is episode post-production, the creation of a polished cut of the show as an MP3 file, and, potentially, public release through one of our outlets.
At the outset of the process, we will give you a Word document-format version of our guide. While you are reading and going through the process, please add notes, text boxes, text, or any other materials that will render a better guide for the next person to host an Annex episode.
What If I Haven’t Been Invited, but I Really Want to Try This?
Resource limitations restrict how many active, fully-produced collaborations can be engaged each semester. We are seeking funds to increase the scale of our collaborations, but it is severely limited at present.
If you are a sociology faculty member who would like to try this out, and you are willing to teach yourself the (very easy, rewarding, and teachable) skills of audio production, please contact me at joseph.cohen@qc.cuny.edu. If you can pull off an awesome sociology podcast episode, I would be honored to rebroadcast it.
Am I a Research Subject?
No. I am not observing your reactions and using it to generate generalized theories about people. You are a colleague who is trying out an experiential learning activity, and offering me advice on a manuscript, as is common in our profession. This particular manuscript is trying to teach people to develop and execute a discussion-based podcast episode, and so I am grateful to draw on any wisdom you can offer both as a participant in this exercise and as a professional educator. Collaborators who help advance the manuscript will be acknowledged in it and any publication that derives from it.
Who Owns the Episode?
All content released by us is on a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license. If you record and produce the final cut of your episodes audio file, then the episode is your property. If I or my team members are actively involved in an episode’s development process, then you agree to our release of the public version of our episode publicly with a CC (BY-NC-SA) license.
Photo Credit. By NBC Television – eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19730698
