Podcasts

Podcasts are not an area of social media that I was familiar with before reading Dr. Levinson's chapter on them. In order to learn more about them firsthand, I also went on iTunes and looked around the podcasts page. I did find a lot of interesting things that I did not know were available as podcasts. I found an entire section of language learning podcasts which I think is very interesting. Since I am going abroad to Spain next Spring I am considering subscribing to one of these podcasts in order to improve my spanish skills. I found a lot of other types of podcasts that seem to serve practical purposes. I think the good thing about podcasts is that they are so accessible and so convenient. So many people listen to their iPods on the way to work, while working out, in the car and it is so easy to simply listen to a podcast instead. It doesn't require any extra time to be set aside. To me podcasts seem like a good outlet for people to express themselves, as anyone can create their own podcast and make it available for others to listen to or watch. I can also see podcasts being used to organize flash-mobs or other real-life events like we talked about in class. I can not think of very many disadvantages to podcasts. For the most part, podcasts seem like practical sources of information or entertainment should someone decide to take part in them.