A Podcasters’ Guide to Overcoming Audio Challenges: Best Practices for Sounding Your Best in our New Online Landscape

Abstract:

Our world has dramatically shifted to become a place where interfacing with friends and colleagues mostly happens via a webcam. This reality also applies to science outreach and informal education activities, as planned in person experiences have been forced to shift to online and/or pre-recorded formats (e.g., virtual summer camps and video-chat happy hours). Shifting to this style of communication can be intimidating, as it requires interfacing with new/unfamiliar software, setting up and using new hardware, and the potential frustration of technical gaffs. Fortunately, long-term science outreach activities such as podcasting (on-demand audio programming) can help break down these barriers by sharing lessons learned from our experience of putting science into an accessible audio format. In our more than a decade of producing a podcasting, featuring dozens of interviews with remote guests, we have developed concise, shareable methods for generating quality audio from a variety of settings and experience levels. The importance of good audio is obvious if the goal is to produce only audio content, but studies also show that audio quality has significant impacts on the perception of video quality as well. Excellent audio can be obtained with relatively inexpensive equipment provided it is used properly. For example, while seismic waves may be essential data for geophysicists, listeners probably don’t want to hear a speaker pounding on a desk for emphasis, especially if their microphone is also on that same desk and picks up unintended vibrations. Even simple tips such as always wearing headphones while recording can create dramatic improvements in a final audio product. Earth and space sciences may benefit greatly from an increased presence in online outreach, as the democratization of content can help promote efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field. Further, the threat of climate change represents, in part, a messaging failure and shows the need to build better bridges between scientists and the general public. Yet climate change is just one of many geoscience hazards that can affect everyone’s lives and livelihoods. Volcanoes will still erupt regardless of a global pandemic. Our goal here is to empower scientists to tell their stories effectively, by helping them sound their best while doing so.