The Cinematologists Podcast

The Cinematologists Podcast - created in March 2015 - is an on-going critical analysis of the concept, status and value of the cinematic experience and cinema culture in the context of digital age, along with being a creative exploration of the possibilities of the podcast medium in the aural production, communication and dissemination of knowledge. The podcast is still a relatively new mediatory form – ostensibly created in 2004 with the arrival of iTunes RSS  hosting and distribution infrastructure – which facilitates the downloading sharing of audio files to consumers using any one of a number of podcasting software apps on a WIFI enabled device. Through innovations synthesis of audio recordings of structured audience discussion the live situation of a cinema screening, in-depth interviews with film practitioners, critics and academics, analytical contextualisation by the researchers, and a range of sound design & editing practice, the Cinematologists constitutes and explores the potential of podcasting’s ‘praxis’. The unique infrastructural relations of this digital platform, the focus on oral communication but in synthesis with textual and visual mediation, the implicit facilitation of self-reflexivity in production, the synthesis with multiple layers of communication (physical and digital), and implications in terms of audience engagement and listening practice, are all elements central to the the researcher’s conceptualisation of praxis and the parameters of ‘the podcast space’. Furthermore, archival and distributive elements of podcasting are central to the research, provoking a range of theoretical and practical questions regarding criticism in a digital age, the definition and negotiation of mediated subjectivity, and the medium’s potential to disrupt the traditional modes of knowledge creation and sharing within and without the academy.