Digital seriality and narrative branching: the podcast Serial, Season One

Abstract

This paper explores the characteristics of storytelling in a digital medium through Season One of the podcast Serial. We analyse how Serial’s digital audience engages with and reacts to the narrative, and how it influences the success and the reach of the show. We draw attention to how the cross-media format of Serial enables listeners to participate in the narrative, to argue that storytelling to a digitally networked audience relies on both old and new aesthetic narrative forms.