The Final Stretch and a Second Wind

In these past few weeks I have made a lot of headway on my thesis and am glad to say that the finish line is in sight!

I have continued revising the main body of my thesis and have begun my concluding ideas. For this, I begin by turning to the idea of History Communication, as put forth by Jason Steinhauer. His initial proposal of the idea is modeled off of the idea of Science Communicators (think Bill Nye, Neil de Grasse Tyson, etc.), who communicate complex scientific ideas in a more digestible way to the general public. Although Science Communication also implies some sort of involvement in policy decisions or reform, I intend to focus away from this aim and focus more on the simple communication aspect.

Now this may just sound like something we're all familiar with, public historians, but what I think is interesting and different about the idea of History Communicators specifically is its cultivation of a public-facing identity at the forefront, maybe even more so than content. What I mean by this is that History Communicators work to create an identity that the public can learn to recognize and trust, so that no matter the specific content taught, the presenter communicates credibility and maintains a relationship with the audience.

Neil de Grasse Tyson is an extremely accomplished and knowledgeable astrophysicist, and through multiple programs, books, essays, etc. has been communicating science for years. His public-facing identity and work combined with his knowledge of science created an instantly recognizable and trustworthy Science Communicator that can not only teach, but excite audiences. This is the way that I believe that podcasts can function as public history, as identity-focused productions that appeal to people's attraction to presenters before content.

This may seem backward in regards to other public history models, but with an audio-only medium the "presentation" is almost everything. Without additional visual stimulation, if you do not like the presenter's voice, tone, editing, formatting, etc. than you won't listen again. You wouldn't listen to a song you don't like, so why a podcast?

At this point I've rambled on far too long and should just be writing this explanation into my thesis itself, but overall I think that podcasts can form identities that create trusting and exciting relationships with audiences different from that of larger institutions, facilitating a wide, new range of public history interactions.