PodcasTraining – Supporting the development of new crisis podcasts

As the global coronavirus pandemic has shown, during a crisis people need accurate and trustworthy information they can rely on. Moreover, people need trustworthy media programming that provides answers to their most pressing questions and debunks mis/disinformation. It is also crucial that the content is produced and packaged in a way that is accessible and relatable.

A crisis can take many forms (health, public safety, political, social, etc.) and affect a group, a community, an entire society or many nations. One distinctive feature of a crisis is the increased need for in-depth information for people to make sound decisions for themselves, their families and wider society so they can safely navigate challenging times. 

Why Podcasts?

Podcasts are growing in popularity all over the world, especially with young audiences who increasingly seek individualized content to consume whenever or wherever it suits them. Podcasts also encourage formats that allow stronger engagement and a deeper focus on content. And while surveys say that many people still don't have a clear technical understanding of what podcasts are and where to get them, all agree that podcasting media is growing fast and offers great potential to experiment and innovate.

Indeed more and more radio stations are also discovering that podcasts, originally intended as on-demand, can also work as broadcast programming.

Podcast training curriculum

For it new project PodcasTraining, DW Akademie worked with podcast experts to develop a series of training modules tailored to the needs of different media outlets. This includes a three-day training-sprint module, a basic training module (10 days) and an advanced training module designed as per the specific needs of the partner and focuses on community engagement, promotion, distribution and analytics.

DW Akademie has also designed a classic multiplier training – train the trainer – module so partners can also train participants on the various podcast modules. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 

Podcast MethodKit

Together with the Swedish organization MethodKit, DW Akademie developed a set of 61 cards on how to produce a podcast.

In order to open podcast training to an even wider audience, DW Akademie designed a MethodKit for Podcasts, developed with more than 20 podcast experts from around the world. Together with the Swedish organization MethodKit, a set of 61 cards were designed to map the shared language around podcasting.

The kit is deliberately simple and easy to use and is intended to facilitate discussion and training around the development, production and distribution of podcasts both in online and offline workshops. This MethodKit will be available in English, but also in Swahili, Amharic, Burmese, Oromo, Arabic, Chichewa, French, Moore, Spanish, Ukrainian, Khmer, Swedish and German.