Frontmatter and Editorial

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the editorial:

Taking its cue both from discussions about the ‘fourth wave’ of feminism that largely takes place in digital environments and from the growing interdisciplinary interest in podcasts, this special issue sets out to explore the aesthetics and politics of this medium with regard to matters of gender and sexuality. The field of podcast studies, advanced by pioneer Richard Berry (2006) and first substantial critical volumes such as Llinares et al.’s Podcasting. New Aural Cultures and Digital Media (2018) and Spinelli and Dann’s Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution (2019), evolves out of (digital) media and cultural studies, with increasing input from fan studies in particular. It thus partakes in a tradition of inquiry with close ties to feminist scholarship and concerns with agency and power. While podcasts engage with a huge array of topics across all spheres of pop culture, including erotic fan fiction as well as LGBTQ+ issues, they are seen as a medium characterized by orality and audience participation, offering intimate and authentic settings for commentary and information (still relatively) free from the constraints of editorship and commercialism of other media.