I recently did an interview with Bill Berkowitz from Media Transparency for his recent article "Podcasting: a new weapon for the Right?" It's a great chronicle of the American Right's recent foray into podcasting, with links to a number of examples.
For my part, I describe how podcasting is one of those great social media equalizers .. and that the Right can no more own podcasting than they could own blogging:
"The podcast format" is particularly "ideal for our very on demand and mobile culture," Trgovac explained. "I can take podcasts with me where ever I go - something of incredible importance in a society that has a large number of commuters and distracted multi-taskers."
Although Trgovac acknowledged that "conservative movements (both political and religious) are often first to market and exploit new technologies to deliver their messages, there is no way that the US conservative movement can 'own' podcasting in the same way that it owns talk radio."
Trgovac insisted that "the power of distribution has shifted dramatically and is no longer in the hands of political ideologues," but is now in "the hands of the people."It is relatively inexpensive, so "anyone can podcast." And while the quality of the broadcasts varies, anyone can be a podcaster "and their potential audience could be the same as Rush Limbaugh's or Al Franken's."
It's a good read, particularly if you are interested in how political movements are using social media to gain advantages and mindshare with their constituents.
Technorati Tags: podcasting, socialmedia, politics
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