‘Un-Podcasting’: C3’s Carola Boehm proposes a new definition for ‘podcasting’ at EPOD 2025 in London

At this year’s EPOD2025 in London in June, C3 Centre Co-Lead and Member, Professor Carola Boehm put forward a new defintion of what a podcast is: 

“Podcasting is an audio-focussed cultural form that is constructed by social innovation in content production”

Below is a recording of a presentation Prof Carola Boehm,  gave live in London. In the presentation, she focussed on the process of exploring the definitional boundaries of the term podcasting, drawing from the literature (Rime et al., 2022; McGregor, 2022; Chan-Olmsted & Wang, 2022; Smith et al., 2021) and her own current experimental ‘un-podcasting’ practice.

As she suggests, “this practice explores the still seldom-used music-talk show format available currently on only a few platforms, which incorporate legal music licensing. My ‘podcast’ – which some might suggest is not really a ‘podcast’ – includes music immersion with a reflective audio-narrative, recorded outside on various runs and provides audio-coached training guidance for ‘learning how to run’. It provides a follow-along, 6-week, return-to-running plan geared towards hypothyroid challenged runners that are in the process of building back up after a break.

The above rather un-snappy elevator pitch for my current experimental podcasting project (CBDB & Boehm, 2022–2024, 2025) expresses one example of the rich and creative opportunities within diverse podcasting practices enabled by different technologies or platforms, and as such, can represent an element of an ‘experimental lab’ in which – in my case – various cultural concepts are interrogated by a practice that pulls along new knowledge, new critical concepts and new conceptual frameworks for the intersections between education and training, entertainment and creative self-expression, personal but public learning journeys”.

This most recent and 4th podcast project of Boehm does not conform to the podcast definition that she herself set out at last year’s EPOD conference and which was – as she put it – outdated the moment it was written: “an audio-first show, made available in digital format via the internet through RSS feeds, stored in mp3, hosted on dedicated or shared or distributed server spaces” (Boehm, 2025). However, this project is an audio-first experience.

Considering the rise of conceptualising podcasting as a cultural phenomenon rather than a technologically enhanced medium, calling it a podcast could be argued to be the right way forward. However, pondering about the validity of what it is she created allowed her to unpick the accepted definitions and meanings, thus shining a light on the term, also signified by using the word of ‘un-podcasting’ in the title.

Using this current ‘un-podcasting’ practice as a case study, the presentation thus explored questions at the heart of this year’s theme of the EPOD Conference. First, it explored critical and conceptual frameworks to support the formation of a broader definition for the term ‘podcast’. Then it considered the tensions inherent in some explorative, personal learning journeys provided by or to a broader community, situating such podcasts between education, entertainment and music listening. Boehm argued  for its potential of minding the gap between formal education and informal learning and how it bridges the different ways of listening from music immersion to guided audio-coached training. Practices like these thus could be understood to situate itself within either commercial, private or public use contexts.

The presentation made use of existing concepts, such as Sacco’s Culture 3.0 (Sacco et al., 2018) and the author’s University 3.0 (Boehm, 2022, chap.4) for unpicking some of the nuances around the above-described tensions.

As an outcome, she puts forward a new definition for the concept of ‘podcasting’, to ensure there is a definition that is inclusive of audio innovations and experiments of expanding innovative podcasting features . 

She thus put forward a new definition:  Podcasting is an audio-focussed cultural form that is constructed by social innovations in content production.

Links: Run/Listen with Carola at CBCB Runs https://www.mixcloud.com/CeeBeeDeeBee/

Last Chance to register for Critical Ecologies Summer Symposium 2025

Last call to participate in our C3 Critical Ecologies Symposium, July 9th 2026!

Where:    Level 3, Catalyst Building. Leek Rd. Campus, University of Staffordshire
When:    July 9th 2026 10 – 4pm

Last chance to sign up and join Rebecca Nunes and Anna Francis and other researchers whose practices intersect with climate alliance and social equity for a day of research sharing and development of exploratory future collaboration. If you would like to join us please email or Teams me: rebecca.nunes@staffs.ac.uk so we can add you in. The day will be held in Catalyst, and food and drinks will be provided.

Critical Ecologies Summer Symposium 2025

Critical Ecologies is a grassroots research hub, generating a community of practice holding space to focus discussion and innovation around nature recovery and environmental justice.

The outcomes of our collaboration throughout the day will form a Research Document, which will be shared immediately after the Symposium with all participants and will inform our ongoing efforts for the next year’s cycle of Critical Ecologies Seasonal Gatherings for 2025/26.

Symposium Date: Wednesday, 9th July 10 – 4

Level 3, Catalyst Building. Leek Rd. Campus, University of Staffordshire 

Critical Ecologies Symposium 2025

Symposium Date: Wednesday, 9th July 10 – 3
Where: Catalyst Building, Leek Road, University of Staffordshire
Expression of Interest in Contributing: Friday June 20th, by 5pm
Registration via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/critical-ecologies-symposium-2025-tickets-1376317244929
PDF Details and Programme: https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/c3centre/wp-content/blogs.dir/1790/files/sites/1790/2025/06/CriticalEcologiesSymposium-2025-1.pdf  

Critical Ecologies is a grassroots research hub, generating a community of practice holding space to focus discussion and innovation around nature recovery and environmental justice.

The 2025 Symposium supports shared visioning for future collaborations and practice-led research connections. We invite all researchers and practitioners interested in these themes to come together via an experimental, generative format, where throughout the day, we will propose provocations that generate knowledge around specific enquiries.

We invite you to propose either a 10-minute sharing provocation of your practice and/or research or a 30-minute hands-on making activity that responds to one of the enquiries.

The Enquiries:
1. Nature Recovery Strategy:
In this session, we will consider the Local Nature Recovery Strategies being prepared nationally; what role and purpose they need to fulfil, and how we, as creative and academic practitioners, might inform the processes or support communities in having a voice within the proceedings. What role can the strategy play in our research and practice in the coming years? More broadly, how can our work as practitioners and researchers better inform policy development?

2. Declaration of Intent:
This session aims to create a shared understanding of the Critical Ecologies Research Hub and to formulate a declaration of intent for the upcoming seasonal cycles. We will discuss the current functions of the hub, which include providing space for resistant research, supporting practice-led research, and fostering transdisciplinary connections and networks. How can we strengthen and build upon these aims?

3. Body/Brain:
Through a haptic experience of the subject themes, this session will enable us to synthesise the insights gained throughout the day, making them visible through practice-led guided engagement with material processes. From this collaborative process, visual motifs will emerge that will reinforce the strategic directions of the research hub moving forward. This session will also facilitate the cross-pollination, discussion, and experimental generation of ideas that occur during a practice-led workshop or workshops.

The outcomes of our collaboration throughout the day will form a Research Document, which will be shared immediately after the Symposium with all participants and will inform our ongoing efforts for the next year’s cycle of Critical Ecologies Seasonal Gatherings for 2025/26.

Symposium Date: Wednesday, 9th July 10 – 3
10 -10.30 – Introduction and framing the day.
10.30 – 11.30 – Enquiry 1: Nature Recovery Strategy
11.30 – 12.30 – Enquiry 2: Convening a Declaration of Intent
12.30 – 1.30 – LUNCH
1.30 – 2.30 – Enquiry 3: Body/Brain
2.30 – 3.00- Wrap Up

Expression of Interest in Contributing
To send in an Expression of Interest to
• present a 10 minute sharing provocation of your practice and/or research or
• a 30 minute hands-on making activity which responds to one of the enquiries,
please send us up to 500 words indicating which of the enquiries you are responding to, and what you intend to present or share by 5pm Friday June 20th to rebecca.nunes@staffs.ac.uk

Attending the Symposium:
If you would like to simply attend the Symposium, please sign up via our EventBrite link above. (We will contact you to ascertain any dietary requirements etc).
Further detail to follow.
We look forward to sharing the day with you.

London’s EPOD conference set to highlight education through podcasting in June

Education through Podcasting (EPOD) is organising its second conference on 26th and 27th June 2025 at Morley College London. A group of educators, podcast practitioners and industry experts will gather to discuss ‘Between entertainment and education’. Speakers will share how they use podcasts, best practices, and themes around ethics and inclusivity.

This conference continues a partnership formed between University of Staffordshire’s C3 Centre, Routledge, Morley College London, the University of Leeds and the University of South Florida. Industry sponsors include Audio UK, Broadcast Radio, HHB, Morley Radio, Routledge, and The Radio Academy.

It was announced also on the Podnews’s newsletter at https://podnews.net/press-release/epod-conference-25, which has a distribution of 32,457.

Carola Boehm, EPOD committee member and C3 member, said: ‘This is a fabulous conference that highlights the opportunities of podcasting to lean into higher education, and universities to lean into podcasting’.

This year’s keynote speakers include freelance producer and presenter Meera Kumar, recently named Producer of the Year 2024; Naomi Mellor, host and producer; and Stephen Coleman, author and emeritus Professor of Political Communication at the University of Leeds.

Camilo Salazar, EPOD committee member and manager at Morley Radio in London, said: ‘We are excited to host this event again. It will be so interesting to bring together people from all over the world and hear how media industry expectations apply in educational contexts.’

Each year, speakers will be given the opportunity to write up a chapter for a book in the EPOD book series, published by Routledge. The first book from the inaugural conference is due for release later this year. For more information about the event or to get tickets to attend, visit: https://www.epod.org.uk/epod-conference-2025

 

Critical Ecologies Spring Session on the IKON Slow Boat

Ikon Slow Boat will be in Stoke-on-Trent throughout April and May, and provides an excellent space for our next Critical Ecologies Session.

https://www.ikon-gallery.org/news/view/ikon-slow-boat-stoke-on-trent-2025

For our next session we will be considering the Local Nature Recovery Strategy for Staffordshire, and asking what we feel priorities should be for both rural and urban areas.

Given the significant loss of habitat we have seen across continents in the past 50 years, and the recent attack on the environment by the current US government, while closer to home reports of tree felling across cities and recent threat to the Dartington Forest – there has never been a more pressing time to think about what we as researchers might be able to do to advocate for nature.

In this session we will experience the new public art trail installed along the Caldon Canal, celebrating biodiversity, before a session aboard the Ikon Slow Boat, where we will consider the importance of our post-industrial water ways as nature corridors through urban landscapes – which then move out to more rural areas.

In the context of the LNRS for Staffordshire currently being prepared, we will hear from Nicola Lynes of Support Staffordshire, Chair of the Community Advisory Panel for the Staffordshire LNRS, who will share information about the Public Consultation underway and consider with us what we would recognise as priorities for Nature Recovery.

As always, this will also be an opportunity to discuss what you are working on currently, and an open discussion on potential for collaborations and information about our July Symposium, while enjoying the experience of the Slowness of Canal Travel on a boat ride.

We will share a reading list with those that sign up for the event, but for now a couple of relevant links:

Link to book a place: Critical Ecologies Spring Session on the IKON Slow Boat Tickets, Wed, May 14, 2025 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite

REBELLIOUS RESEARCH: Create Practice Research Seminar Series – Round 4

Welcome to Round 4  of the Rebellious Research Seminar Series focusing on Creative Practice Research. The seminar series returns yet again, with some truly exquisite guests. As always, free and open to all (all sessions run online via MS Teams), this initiative aims at widening support and understanding around practice research in a friendly and inclusive manner, with some top experts sharing their experience and advice.

Download your Round 4 (2024/2025) PROGRAMME 

For more info and to be added to the mailing list please contact Agata Lulkowska (Agata.Lulkowska@staffs.ac.uk)

Download your Round 4 (2024/2025) PROGRAMME 

All the past sessions are available on a dedicated YouTube channel

Any changes ot the programme will be announced on: https://www.agatalulkowska.com/seminar-series

Step Up to Research – Conferencing

  • When: 01 May 2025 15:00 – 16:30
  • Where: Flaxman L518
  • Registration: Through MS Outlook Invite
  • For Who: University of Staffordshire Staff Only

After a short break the Step-Up-to-Research team is pleased to announce the return of the ‘Step up to Research’ programme, reimagined as a cross-department collaboration between the C3 and LEVELS research centres.  LEVEL’s Sharon Coleclough and C3’s Mark McKenna will be convening a packed programme of activity over the coming months that includes:

  • Beginning to Write – Book chapters and Journal Articles
  • Curating the work of Others: Edited Collections and Journal Special Issues
  • Developing Book proposals
  • Creative practice and alternative outputs
  • Studying for a PhD – what you need to know
  • Curating an exhibition or live event
  • Grant capture do’s and don’ts

The series is aimed at the research curious, but everyone is welcome to attend and even if you are further along on your research journey, we would welcome your input into the sessions as we grow a vibrant and connected research community here at Staffs.

We are keen to be as responsive to your needs as possible and plan to conduct a skills audit as part of these sessions, in order to ascertain where the gaps are and how we might best support you. We have designed these sessions to give you practical advice on the processes involved to enable you to grow your research profile.

Since conference season is almost upon us, we would like to begin with:

  • Conferences – a guide to attending and presenting

In this session we’ll cover everything from where to find the various call for papers requests in your area of expertise, to responding to those calls, and from preparing and delivering your conference paper, to networking and any post conference considerations. We understand that conferencing can be daunting, even for the more experienced among us, so consider this your one-stop-shop to get you ready for the summer season.

These are informal sessions in which a range of staff will share their experience and expertise of each of the topics providing the foundation for a broader discussion of how we might support you in achieving your own research goals.  The is an open forum for researchers to gain knowledge, get answers to questions and to feel supported in their research moving forwards.

We look forward to seeing you.

Mark and Sharon

If you have any queries or suggestions please contact:

Sharon as the representative of LEVELS: @Sharon Coleclough

or Mark McKenna as the representative of C3: @Mark Mckenna

Please note the session will take place in person in Flaxman L518, but we would encourage you to accept the Teams meeting so we can gauge numbers.

Philosophy Research Seminar Series – Life Matters: Thought, Nature and Technology

  • When: 27th March 2025
  • Where: Online
  • Registration: Please contact Patrick O’Connor if you would like an invite to the meeting.

You are invited to Staffordshire Philosophy’s research seminar series. This time we will be speaking with Prof. Katherine Withy who teaches Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Paper: The World of the Kitchen

Abstract: When Heidegger introduces the notions of world and being-in-the-world in Being and Time, he speaks of the carpenter’s workshop.1 The carpenter’s workshop is both part of a world—namely, the world of a tradesperson in early 20th Century Germany—and a model for what it is to be in a world at all. As a model, the carpenter’s workshop has profoundly influenced how Heidegger’s concepts of world and being-in-the-world were developed and how they have been given uptake. You can hardly take two steps into Heidegger scholarship without running into a carpenter and their hammer. Using this example as a model for being-in-the-world makes certain features of us and the worlds we inhabit salient while obscuring others. Some of what this model obscures is crucial to the phenomenon of being-in-the-world, and it is made perspicuous by a different model. I want to suggest that a better model for being-in-the-world is being in the world of the kitchen.

Please contact Patrick O’Connor if you would like an invite to the meeting or if you are having trouble accessing the paper

Launch of a new Creative Industries Lecture Series

  • When: 5th March 2025
  • Where: G027 Cadman Building / Cadman Yard, University of Staffordshire
  • Registration: Sign up for free through Eventbrite linke below

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/staffs-creative-industries-lecture-series-tickets-1222599059699

Led by C3 Member Dr. Mark McKenna, the inaugural lecture in the newly established Creative Industries Lecture Series will be at 3pm on March 5th in G027 Cadman Building / Cadman Yard. Britain’s creative industries are world leading and they are the engine of our economic growth. In stark financial terms, in 2021 they generated £108bn in economic value and employed 2.3 million people. They are valuable and vital, but the importance of the creative industries goes well beyond the economy. Art, design, and entertainment enrich our lives and contribute to cultural identity and societal well-being. The works that these industries produce are the lens through which we understand the world.

This series of lectures will feature emerging and established speakers sharing their insights and experiences of the creative industries and, whether you’re a student, professional, or simply ‘creative industries curious’, the series is perfect for anyone looking to be inspired and to learn something new.

Mark has a forthcoming book with Routledge – Levelling Up the Screen Industries: Film and Television Production as Regenerative Strategy in Places Left Behind (2025), which grew out of a piece of work for Stoke-on-Trent City Council on the viability of a Film Office in the region and offers an assessment of the contribution that similar regions can make to the screen economy. The book considers the impact that various industrial and governmental devolution strategies have had or are having and explores the potentially transformative effect that this could have on the UKs screen economy.

 

 

Education Through Podcasting EPOD Conference Deadline coming up: Don’t miss the deadline!

The deadline for submitting abstracts for EPOD 2025 Conference is fast approaching. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this year’s conference!

https://www.epod.org.uk

This conference cements a partnership of EPOD with Routledge. For this year’s conference Morley College London is partnering with the University of Staffordshire, Leeds University, and the University of South Florida. In this conference, academics, researchers and practitioners will share and disseminate research and experience of teaching, learning and training through podcasts.  

The focus of the conference this year will be Between entertainment and education: balancing media industry expectations within educational contexts

We invite you to submit a paper abstract of 300-500 words to be reviewed for inclusion in the conference programme. This should be submitted by 28/02/2025 and you can find the Call For Papers here.  Note that this is an in-person conference and it will not be possible to present online.

Presenting authors will be given the opportunity to submit a paper for peer review and consideration for the next Routledge publication.  

A publication from last year’s conference contributors is in press and will be published by the time this conference rolls around!

We would really appreciate it if you could help spread the word about EPOD over email to anyone who may be interested, and social media. You can follow, like and share our social media posts on Instagram, X and Facebook, as well as sharing the Call for Submissions to networks.

Many thanks again, looking forward to seeing you in June 2025!

Warm regards, 

The EPOD Team