I had the privilege to write about podcasting for British Naval History this week. It’s a pretty decent post, if I do say so myself, and I invite you to give it a read and let me know what you think!

In the post, I talk about the popularity of podcasting, the use of podcasting within academia, and the potential podcasting has for communicating the humanities beyond the university. I also include some thoughts on how scholars can support indie podcasting.

Podcasts offer a unique opportunity for what some scholars call outreach, although I prefer the term HumComm—humanities communication (adapted from the term SciComm used by our colleagues in the sciences).

Humanities communication is all about showing the public what we do and why it’s relevant. After all, why should the public care about our scholarship efforts (and, ultimately, our survival) if they don’t understand why our research is important and how it impacts their lives?

The obvious answer, given that I am a podcaster writing about podcasting, may be to produce a podcast. While that’s certainly an option, not everyone has the time and inclination to undertake such a project. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of the podcast movement, though.

Alison Innes, “Using the Popularity of Podcasting to Communicate the Humanities, ” British Naval Historyhttp://www.britishnavalhistory.com/using-popularity-podcasts-communicate-humanities/ Thursday, 2 March 2017.

Thank you to Samuel McLean for this opportunity and to the podcasters of #humanitiespodcasts for sharing their stories with me!