Anytime, Anyplace? The Context-Dependency of News Podcast Use

Abstract

Seeking to explore how people integrate news podcasts into their everyday routines, this study asked 60 participants to listen to a daily news podcast for up to four weeks and interviewed them afterward. Our findings suggest a rather rigid connection between news podcasts and specific contexts of use, indicating that news podcasts are not as “anytime, anywhere” as often suggested. Our results indicate that news podcasts are embedded into specific daily practices, and tend to be forgotten if these contexts are interrupted or if the window of opportunity to listen is missed. We also demonstrate how multitasking with news podcasts makes both mundane tasks and consuming news less boring (temptation bundling), makes participants feel like they are being efficient (optimization), turns already-pleasant practices into moments of relaxation (enrichment), and makes participants hit a cognitive sweet spot between distraction and engagement (focus-boosting).