ABSTRACT
Digitization and the emergence of Audio 3.0 have brought auditory on-demand broadcasts into a new age, in which audio can be characterized by fragmentation of offers and listening habits, detachment from large players, and regulation by platforms (e.g., Spotify) and by the blurring of boundaries between producers and listeners. This development is as much a challenge as an opportunity for journalism, which has integrated podcasts as a central and successful format for distributing audio content. This chapter outlines why the combination of podcasts with audio files has been an important and global innovation in journalism over the past decade, the aims of media houses in introducing podcasts, and their added value for society. Four case studies from Austria, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, conducted within the JoIn-DemoS project, illustrate the difficult but successful path of podcasts as an innovation in journalism and show its aims and the factors that have supported and obstructed its implementation and societal impact.
