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ABSTRACT
Podcasts have been on the rise recently with both audience numbers and advertising revenue increasing. Scholars have been scrutinizing the medium for quite some time. However, empirical research into the effects of podcast in general and their hosts in particular have been rare. Against the backdrop of the parasocial relations (PSR) approach, we therefore conducted an exploratory online survey of German podcast listeners (n = 804) asking which characteristics of a podcast host promote ties with listeners and whether these have persuasive effects. The study showed that audio media are capable of fostering PSR that can have an impact on listeners’ attitudes and behaviors.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. We understand serial narratives as a segmented sequence of confined but linked episodes. They can be interlaced in terms of form (publication slot, opening credits, theme), content (host, subject area or plot, setting), and structure (composition of story lines) (Schlütz, Citation2016, p. 96).
2. Physical attractiveness is, of course, problematic to judge in the case of audio, although some listeners might be familiar with the host’s looks (i.e. from social media). We reasoned, however, that the voice as the container of the message could have an equivalent effect in terms of PSR (cf. Vinney & Vinney, Citation2017) as the perception of voice can be an indicator for the attractiveness of the person (Saxton et al., Citation2009).
3. To avoid selection bias we approached podcasters (both male and female) from a wide variety of shows (with different genres, subject areas, and audiences).
4. WRINT: Wer redet, ist nicht tot (Who talks is not dead) by Holger Klein.
5. Holger Klein (n=113), Tim Pritlove (n=73) and Tobias Baier (n=66) formed the top three of this ranking.
6. Cronbach’s alpha is a measure of the internal consistency or reliability of a scale (Field, Citation2009, p. 674).
7. We included physical attractiveness to cater for social media users who were familiar with the host’s physical appearance.