Plugged In: Predicting Podcast Audiences and their Political Participation Monica Chadha Alex Avila Homero Gil de Zuniga School of Journalism University of Texas – Austin
Introduction and Rationale Researchers know little about who podcast audiences are. The technology is being adopted rapidly. Little is known about the secondary effects of this technology- namely political participation.
Podcast- operationalized “A digital audio or video file that is episodic; downloadable; program-driven, mainly with a host and/or theme; and conveniently accessible, usually via an automated feed -- such as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed -- with computer software.”
RQ and Hypotheses RQ: Who is downloading podcasts? What is a typical demographic snapshot of a podcast listener and do demographic variables predict podcast use? H1: Podcast use for news will predict political participation online. H2: Podcast use for news will predict political participation offline.
Methodology Sample data provided by the Media Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Information was collected via a web-based survey between Dec 15, ‘08 and Jan 5, ‘09. Sample was matched with the important demographic variables of the U.S. National Census, specifically gender and age. 1,482 valid cases; response rate was 17.3 percent. Final sample = 958 participants
Findings: T1- Demographics Users N=115 Podcast type Politics N=39 Sports N=17 Entertainment N=59 News N=40 Education N=39 Other N=42 Gender Female Male Race White Non-White Income Bel 39,999 40–69, , ,000 up
T2- Demographic Regression Bs.e.WaldExp (B) Demographics Gender (Female)-.424* Race (White)-.794*** Age Education.124# Income.058* Nagelkerke’s R Square.072*** Cell entries are B coefficients (unstandardized), standard error, Wald χ 2 and odds ratio. N=958 * p <.05, ** p <.01, *** p <.001
T3 – Online/Offline Part. Online Political Participation Offline Political Participation Demographics Age Education Gender (Female) Income Ethnicity R Square *** ** %***.064*.277***.050#.069*.059# 12.3%*** Media use & Partisanship Media Use Partisanship R Square change.297***.121*** 11.9%***.189***.066* 4.6%*** Podcast Use R Square change.164*** 2.6%***.105** 1.1%** TOTAL R SQUARE 17.4%*** 18%*** N=958. Cell entries are standardized Beta coefficients. # p <.10, * p <.05, ** p <.01, *** p <.001
Conclusions Males tend to use podcasts more than females. Also, higher income bracket = increased likelihood of using podcasts. Minorities seem to use this technology to a larger degree than White individuals. Entertainment seems to be the most popular genre for podcast users. Established an empirical relationship between podcast use and political participation, online and offline.