Hear Here! The Case for Podcasting in Research

Podcasting as a platform has broadly progressed into a popular resource for communication, including advancing knowledge, science, and medicine through research dissemination. First, there is evidence to indicate that podcasting has evolved into a "second wave" as an effective tool to be used in academia and that it can help disseminate research findings to reach other scholars in the field. However, there is also a growing body of literature to indicate it is being used more frequently to communicate, tapping into information that is primarily generated through scholarly work to reach a broader and more general audience. The purpose of this paper is to examine the following research question: How effective is the use of podcast technology for academic research dissemination, research communication, and promotion? This paper also took into account some podcasts representing research, notably VIEW to the U produced by the Office of the Vice-Principal, Research at University of Toronto Mississauga. This research also considered gaps in the current literature related to the effectiveness of audio outputs in research.