PODCAST, & SOCIAL MEDIA

What is a Podcast? A podcast is an informational/entertaining format on demand that the audience can tune in to at any time, a radio show on steroids. Typically, this format is audio-based but can be produced on camera, which allows the target audience to listen while exercising, doing household chores and when relaxed. This allows the audience to access the podcast from their favourite platform. 

(Briefing from the Client)

''As technology develops quickly, so does the opportunity to produce new and exciting forms of media. Interactivity with your target audience, particularly the younger generation, is becoming more and more important, and interactive media is now seen by the industry as the future. Podcasts, despite a slow start, are now becoming a major media platform, and popularity is growing steadily. You are to create a podcast for a specific target audience of 16-25-year-olds. You must ensure that the podcast covers topics that would resonate with your particular audience. As well as the podcast, you need to create a number of social media pages for the podcast, to interact with your audience, build a further audience and gather comments and questions for future episodes. The podcast will be recorded using the Rode Podcaster. You can also record it as a visual podcast. Along with this, you should create other items too, such as an album cover and logo, to further engage with your audience. You should evidence all of your research and pre-production, and how your social media channels have engaged with the audience, but also show all production, including test recordings, and post-production, paying particular focus to your own role within the group, with regular ongoing reflection. Remember, you can present this in any format you wish as long as all elements are covered.''

When analysing the brief, I found the age demographic is the most important piece of information when starting a podcast or any form of entertainment. The target demographic is 16-25-year-olds, as this would narrow down the topics of interest and develop the podcast to this demographic. When creating a podcast for 16-25-year-olds, I found that they have a small attention span to long form content, so having brief topics in between the large/heavy segments. 

The brief describes the podcast as audio-focused, but it can also be visual, as 16-25-year-olds are more visual learners than audio, which is why this demographic prefers film and TV to books. However, due to the lack of room in the podcast booth, backdrops and lighting would be difficult to add to the room. This is important, as having a brightly lit room in a consistent setup is important in creating/establishing a brand.

The Brief also wants the podcast to create different social media pages to grab attention and make noise for our target demographic to find and engage with the podcast. One idea I had was to create clips of discussions that happened on the podcast to create a form of debate within the comment section and host for the following episode. Following this, we would have to make an album cover for the podcast to catch doom scrollers on audio platforms and social media pages to create a strong brand identity. This is important as creating a memorable brand helps visual learners, like our target demographic, create an understanding of the show. 

I plan to focus on YouTube for social media promotion, as I can post clips in the format of shorts for the doom-scrollers, I also plan to post clips of topic that end on a cliff hanger or end the same as they started to create the idea of them being left behind, since its on YouTube they can click the channel and watch the full episode in a couple of clicks.

(Legal Considerations in the UK)

Slander: Spoken false statements that are damaging to a person's reputation.

Libel: Written false statements that are damaging to a person's reputation.

Slander/Libel (Defamation): An example of this is where the BBC edited a Trump speech, which presented him in a false narrative. This is an example as Trump took out a lawsuit against the BBC for defamation for $10bn (7.5bn). Initially, it was 1bn; however, due to the BBC not owning up to the damage, Trump is suing for more, which is 10 times more than the BBC's annual TV license fee. https://news.sky.com/story/trump-v-the-bbc-whats-in-the-lawsuit-and-what-could-happen-next-13484188 (08.01.2026). Another media example of defamation is the famous lawsuit of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, where she created allegations of defamation and abuse between her and Johnny Depp. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64031252 (08.01.2026). This led to Heard being cancelled and called out on social media for over-the-top lies about Depp. This created a chance for Depp's audience to create memes of Heard, which backlashed her chance of redemption on her career path. 

Copyright: Properly licensed music and content. 

An example of this is in 2017, Gary L. Goldman made a copyright claim stating that Disney had stolen his idea for 'Zootopia' from an unreleased/unfinished film 'Looney'. Goldman made a pitch to Disney in the early 2000s for 'Looney' with the same setting, character archetypes and themes. At the end of the lawsuit, Goldman did not win, due to the small work between 'Zootopia' and his unfinished film. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-39349323 (08.01.2026). Another example of copyright is PokerNews Podcast facing 7 million dollars in damages, and iBusMedia folded in the copyright infringement lawsuit. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/11/21/universal-music-group-v-pokernews/ (08.01.2026). 

Privacy and GDPR: Canescent is required to collect personal data or record interviews.

https://insidehmcts.blog.gov.uk/category/podcast/ (08.01.2026).

https://www.finchley.co.uk/finchley-learning/podcasts-uk-legal-considerations-and-licensing (08.01.2026). 

(Ethical Considerations)

Fairness and Accuracy: Avoid misrepresentation and stereotypes.

Fact-checking and consent: Important to make sure that anything suggested as fact has been checked and verified through reliability and validity.

Audience Impact considerations: Will your content have a potential impact on positive relationships with your audience? 

Transparency: Openness and communication develop a trust with the listener and creator - do they work in tandem with a certain company or political party that might impact content?

Why are important to you as a creator and the impact it has on your work? When it comes to the legality of creating a podcast, you own the right to this podcast and audio files/other assets (not physical) in your place/company of residence, which protects you from a large media company from stealing your format for profit. If a creator used someone else's product, they could be sued, which left them with legal fees and cancellations from the creator's target audience and audiences outside the target.

(EXISTING CONTENT)

WVFRM Podcast - Genre: News (Inform/Entertain) (www.youtube.com/@Waveform): When researching this podcast, I've noticed the target audience is tech enthusiasts (16 - 25, but can grow with the podcast, as audience and host increase in age), who want to grow their knowledge within this genre. The structure and format of the podcast are simple but set up in a certain way. This podcast places the major news in the middle of the podcast to recharge the audience's attention span, while placing an advert after the announcement. The podcast would also add a fun little trivia game that the hosts play in one sitting, then would be edited to split the game between the segments of the podcast. The game would stack points throughout multiple episodes of the podcast, where the winner would be announced at the end of the season. This is a great way for the target audience to digest the tech news, especially if the episode is two hours long. The podcast started with two hosts, then later added a third host full-time, who has been a guest on many episodes of the podcast. This was a strategic way to boost viewership and recognition, as the reason for this extra host was to boost viewership when they appeared as a guest. The episodes' length is usually an hour and a half, but can extend to two hours for big tech news announcements. The tone and style of the podcast are simple, with the brand of the main host, who is a well-known tech YouTuber in the industry with over twenty million subscribers. Following his YouTube style, this grabs the attention of his viewers to watch this podcast. The theme of the show is red and black with a bright, polished white, which could be used to keep the viewer intrigued in the podcast. This is because white light has lots of blue light, especially coming from a large tv or phone for visual watchers. For the audience listeners, they use a loud soundboard that complements the hosts' discussions or music when the hosts are thinking about the trivia game. The podcast is light-hearted with humour and mistakes within the production. This is shown through the production crew's participation in the podcasts, joining the discussions and expanding on their thoughts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPqmGfulrfw&t=8741s (15.01.2026). The podcast is set on a professional level, with the employed audio engineer and editors/visual artists, but it can seem amateur with the participation of the production crew. The podcast is distributed on many platforms: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, Deezer, YouTube and YouTube Music. The WVFRM Podcast interacts with the audience through the comment section of YouTube and Spotify, which will be brought up in the next episode. They also interact on X (Twitter), where the viewers upload clips of their own and the hosts discuss further/promote the podcast.

Shut Up, I'm Talking! Podcast - Genre: Storytelling (Entertain) (www.youtube.com/@shutuplmtalking): When researching this podcast, I've noticed the target audience is the viewers from the host's audience. As the hosts are well-known in the streaming industry, they would host a relaxed stream to entertain their audience. Their target audience is young adults, as they grew up watching them and would have watched them as teenagers as well (16 - 25). The structure and format of this podcast follows their 'banter-filled' stories of their week, where they are often joined by guests, using a chat show feel/format. The tone and style of the podcast is often set in a blue coloured room, which could symbolise the idea of the podcast being calm and relaxed. This is also shown through the props and seating in the room. The use of yellow is used for the host to sit on, which could act as a bridge for the host to pop out from the background and acts as a border to help the visual viewers, who are new to this podcast, differentiate the guest from the host. When looking at the distribution, the podcast uses Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, YouTube Music, Audible and others. When it comes to audio-only formats, this podcast uses a soundboard to add effects to grow engagement. The podcast posts short clips of content on reels, shorts and TikTok, which is where viewers get trapped in doom scrolling. The hosts also interact in the comment section on YouTube for questions the viewers might have, which can be followed by X (Twitter) posts.  

Crime Junkies Podcast - Genre: Storytelling/Interviews (Entertain) (https://www.youtube.com/@CrimeJunkie/videos): When researching this podcast, I found that there is one main host, who is narrating a true crime story, which can range from murder, disappearance, etc. Following this with Ashley Flowers discussing, reacting and asking questions with her co-host Brit Prawat, adding commentary to the podcast. This podcast follows a conversation, friend-like, over a serious and ominous topic. The target audience for this podcast has a niche audience for people who are into solving mysteries and analysing the story being told, over a chat show-like environment. When it comes to the show set up, the podcast has the hosts in casual clothing (jeans, top and jacket). This shows us that the podcast is a relaxed show that can be watched in any order, unlike a tv show, where you have to watch episode one through eight. The use of dimmed lighting in the set links to the idea of the podcast being a mystery, as dark rooms have connotations of scary, creepy and spooky. The audio used is an 'EV RE20 RE-Series', which is a standard microphone used for podcasts (starting from £500.00). The platforms for the distribution follow: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube (and their music app). Following this, Flowers posts content and asks questions to her audience on her social media and the official 'Crime Junkie' socials. The socials the podcast is on, where Flowers posts clips and updates is Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Flowers uses the same platforms, and in addition, TikTok is also used for her personal socials.

(COMPARISON)

When comparing the three podcasts I have chosen, I found that two of the podcasts used comfy chairs and couches, whereas 'WVRM' uses chairs and desks to deliver and digest the news/discussions. Which is good for their podcast, as 'WVFRM' is a tech news/gadget podcast. Shut Up, I'm Talking, and Crime Junkies are casual viewing podcasts, where the topics of the show range from stories from the hosts' personal lives to stories about the target subject of the episode. This is shown through the use of dark lighting for 'Crime Junkies', which has connotations of spooky, scary, which is often a sign of a story. This is also shown through the casual living room set, in both 'Shut Up, I'm Talking' and 'Crime Junkies', where they use an array of fabrics with bright colours. Following bright colours, all three podcasts use an object to make the main host stand out from the other hosts/guests. This is shown on 'WVFRM' through Marques Browlee using a different microphone from the production team and co-hosts. Whereas, in 'Shut Up, I'm Talking', Tom Simons uses a yellow chair which pops, unlike Jack's, which is blue. 'Crime Junkies' changes this, where the host and co-host share the couch and use the same microphones; this is due to the podcast being mainly audio. However, when a guest is brought on, the guest would use another chair, a 'single seating' chair, rather than sharing the couch with the host. All three podcasts use this to create a hierarchy within the podcast so audiences can differentiate the host and co-hosts from the guests brought on. After researching these podcasts, I've found that a casual setting is most popular with viewers, which influences my intentions for what podcast I plan to make. I also found that visual podcasts are most popular with user engagement on YouTube, when it comes to interacting with the audience, which is primarily done through comments on YouTube. After looking through the three podcasts' socials, I've noticed more engagement/posts on Instagram with Q and A's on their stories. This has influenced the way I conduct target audience research, as you can post polls on Instagram stories. 

ANAIMATED LOGO (INTRO)

After the graphics designer created the base outline for the logo, myself and the editor on 28/01/2026, went on photoshop to create the animated logo for the intro of the podcast (this is not the final intro). We initially started with the black laptop with a play button on the laptop screen, while the background is a dark royal blue, which is there to create a strong brand identity and to separate the laptop on with the off laptop. Next the cursor would move to the play button, when the cursor clicks the play button the screen goes to a mutli-coloured screen, with a faint white noise. This creates a pause in the podcast, creating a strong attention for confusion, which pulls them further into the podcast. The next scene is the cable getting unplugged, which simbolises 'DISCONNECTED' which is the podcasr name. On the laptop screen, the word 'DISCONNECTED' is displayed in a bold yellow font with a darker blue background colour on the screen from scene 1, the main laptop body colour is white, with the background of being black to create contrast.  

PODCAST RECORDING (TEST)

On 28.01.2026, I decided to go into the podcast studio with my production crew and create a short test for the format of the podcast, I initially wanted the podcast to be in the room. However, the room was too similar for what I wanted for the podcast brand. I initially wanted the podcast to be a webcam based podcast, like 'eBoys Podcast', which recorded over OBS on each hosts computer from their room. From this the podcast will be recorded from the hosts house in their room, where the hosts feel more comfortable. I also feel this is a better idea, as one of our hosts has issues with commuting to college, which could possibly mess with the podcast recording schedule.

SETTING UP SOCIALS (YouTube & TikTok)

When creating the socials, I have found that YouTube is the best platform to host the podcast on, as long-form videos are defaulted to this platform by larger media personalities in the past and still do to this day for ad revenue, which can help a small creator start upgrading their equipment. When creating the YouTube, the handel (username) was orignally going to be 'DISCONNECTED_Podcast'. However, the handel was taken/already in use. I decided to create the handel by adding a '1' as the 'I' as it mosts represents the letter, I also found that adding a number in between a couple of letters, represents our podcast and our brand well, as feeling disconnected can feel isolating majority of the time, especially when our target audience is likely going to listen to our future episodes alone, while doing common task like cleaning. After creating the account, I decided to add the logo onto the channel. However, when the graphics designer sent me the final product, the format was wrong, I fixed this by going into canva and adjusting the size on a canva yt template. I also created a banner with logo, as I wanted to fill the white empty space on our channel with our brand idenity. I decided to use three logos together with one bigger logo in the centre, as I wanted to follow the photography composition of simitry to create a visual pleasing setup. I also wanted to use three, as the format to be seen on all devices (mobile, computer, tablet and tv) is too small to add more graphics to the banner without it looking cluttered. When deciding on the three logos on our banner, I have found that it helps tell our story of our brand, which is one out of three indivuals, will feel disconnected from the rest of the group and can further into world news.  

YouTube/TikTok - Clips (ENGAGEMENT BAIT)

D1SCONNECTED Podcast! (FINAL):

EVALUATION (FINAL)

When producing this podcast, I have found that targeting my podcast to the specific audience has been successful, as I have gathered primary research from Zach's Instagram, through my own survey, where I did not get enough responses, after sending it around the college. Zach's Instagram was a great way to gain insight into the age demographic from the brief, as our production crew are in this age demographic. From the results of the survey, I have gathered that producing a video podcast is essential to create a successful podcast with the 16-25 demographic, as a lot of these viewers prefer visual solutions over audio formats, due to the rise of short-form content. When deciding the length of the podcast, the brief stated the podcast to be 10-30 minutes long, which is quite lengthy for our target demographic. I decided to add more segments to our hosts' interests with the latest news, as they align with the demographic, which creates a broken fourth wall. When creating the social media channels, I have found that TikTok and YouTube were the only right answer, when creating socials, as our target demographic uses YouTube for long-form content, like podcasts and short films, but will use TikTok for short-form content, with a rise in long-form by creating multiple clips of one video/film. I decided against other social platforms, such as the Metaverse, due to controversy with the rise in Meta stealing copyrighted material to train AI and a draught in communities where Meta hosts their AI servers. This was a major discussion when deciding which platforms should host the podcast, as the podcast's target demographic is against the generative AI usage. If I were to repeat this task, I would follow the same route as this project. However, I would branch out further by creating a Snapchat social account, as the podcast's target demographic uses Snapchat daily, mainly because of the streaks Snapchat hosts on their platform. When it came to the production of the podcast, I ran into multiple problems when it came to organising the podcast remotely, as one of the hosts did not set their camera to auto-focus, which I thought was a problem; I did not have to think about. Which created an out-of-focus webcam appearance. Instead of re-recording the podcast, I decided to use the podcast we already filmed, as this creates an unprofessional format, which our target demographic prefers, which is why TikTok is popular. This has helped me gain more producer knowledge, as I now know I have to create a bare essentials (basics) checklist to go through (how to focus a camera), and look out for any of these past problems that occurred. Another skill I have developed/improved is my ability to create and produce more research for my specific final product, which targets the client's brief I was given. These skills are important for my personal and career development, as this has allowed me to learn a directorial role, like managing a production crew. When producing this podcast, I have learnt how to effectively create a mind-map when planning and effectively producing research that bases off my target demographic. This will be important when it comes to my FMP, as I plan to create a meaningful piece of work that relates to a specific demographic. Because of this, researching primary research will be important, as I will have to conduct a survey for that demographic.