I know what a podcast is: Post-serial fiction and podcast media identity

Abstract

This article explores a developing sub-genre of highly popular fiction podcasts emergent from the success of WBEZ’s Serial (2014). While numerous press commentators have branded such podcasts derivative, or as “trying too hard to be like Serial” (McFarland, Fiction podcasts are trying too hard to be like Serial, www.wired.com. 2015) this overlooks the crucial fact that Serial is not just an extension of effective radio journalism aesthetic and form, but rather offers an inherently and importantly successful, sympathetic utilisation and expression of its unique podcast media identity. Furthermore, discourses of derivation ignore the extent to which such shows expand upon Serial’s blueprint. From exploring a broad sampling of what we term post-Serial fiction, this chapter argues that audio-drama takes a new and critically important shape as the first explicitly podcast-oriented audio-fiction form.