Deep Listening: Podcast Audiences and Affective Resonance in Urban Ghana

Abstract Podcasting, with its focus on voices, remains a compelling topic for African studies research, which has historically put orality at the center of the field. Recognizing sparse audience inclusion in existing research on African podcasting, the authors conducted focus groups with listeners in urban Ghana to document consumption practices and attitudes toward this form of new orality. Using the concept “deep listening” drawn from participant comments, the researchers theorize that listeners and producers experience a form of sound-mediated, affective resonance from podcasts that utilize audience collaboration and local sonic aesthetics, linking the affordances of openness and freedom to the medium.