Giving voice to community: Embodied scholarship, generative discussion, and other affordances of scholarly podcasting

Scholarly publishing often focuses on the end product—a journal article, a monograph—with little homage paid to those who, formally and informally, helped shape the artifact. As open movements gain momentum and support, and the peer review process faces scrutiny, there is an opportunity to reevaluate the purpose of scholarly publishing and its artifacts, the ways in which our current publishing models shape our perspective of knowledge production as a largely individual endeavor. Scholarly podcasting can be one way in which we re-envision what publishing looks—and sounds—like. This article explores the affordances of podcasting as a medium in terms of its utility to allow scholars to audibly embody their work and facilitate gathering and community, bringing their personhood and identities into the expression of their research, as well as the four genres of podcasting that take greatest advantage of these affordances. Open peer review podcasting, a facet of scholarly podcasting, can bring to the forefront the ways in which a community of scholars ultimately shapes a final product, refocusing the purpose of peer review on supportive critique that yields a more meaningful and robust final artifact rather than the box-ticking or gatekeeping purposes it sometimes serves in the current publishing landscape. It also makes visible—and audible—the very real network of individuals that makes a solo authored artifact possible. By undergoing open peer review via podcast, distilling the conversation, and making visible the changes made to the article based on that conversation, this article both explores the theoretical possibilities of scholarly podcasting while modeling the process.