More than a laugh: Relational listening, parasocial relationships and the influence of stand-up comedian podcast hosts

Despite the rising prominence of stand-up comedian podcast hosts, how listeners describe and make sense of their engagement with them remains underexplored. Quantitative work has documented that relational listening is associated with parasocial relationship (PSR) formation across media including podcasts, and that stronger PSRs with hosts are associated with perceived influence on listeners’ attitudes and behaviors. Less clear is how the three constructs of relational listening, PSRs and individual-level media effects feature in listeners’ accounts of podcast engagement, and whether they extend beyond the attitudinal and behavioral effects studied so far. To address this, the present study draws on semi-structured interviews with 10 podcast listeners, analyzed using deductive thematic analysis with the three constructs as a priori themes. Findings show that many participants described their listening in terms consistent with all three constructs. Across participants’ accounts, examples emerged of all six individual-level media effects (cognitive, belief, attitudinal, affective, physiological and behavioural). Taken together with prior findings, these qualitative patterns raise the possibility of a connected sequence (relational listening to PSR formation to media effects) that future research might investigate.