by The Cowl Editor on May 2, 2019
Campus
by Maura Campbell ’22
News Staff
Podcasts are quickly becoming a popular medium to educate, create, and explore. With all of the different options and podcast topics to choose from, the community here at Providence College may not be aware that the political science department has its own podcast, called Beyond Your News Feed: Understanding Contemporary Politics.
Beyond Your News Feed is a collaborative work that began in the fall of 2018 when Dr. Bill Hudson, chair of the political science department, spoke with Joe Carr ’83, associate vice president for marketing and communications, about the possibility of producing a podcast sponsored by the department.
Since then, Beyond Your News Feed has produced six episodes and will continue production in upcoming years. Dr. Hudson spoke about the content of the podcast and its future here at the College.
“We, as the title of the podcast suggests,” he said, “want to move beyond surface journalistic reporting on political events and provide listeners with historical background and analytical perspectives on what they read from their daily news sources.”
Essentially, the goal of Beyond Your News Feed is to dive deeper into political topics that surface-level news reporting may not fully explain.
The content of the podcast tends to vary depending on who is involved. “We have a deep and broad range of expertise in the political science department,” Hudson explained.
For example, the episode that featured Dr. Gizem Zencirci focused on Turkish politics, where the episode featuring Dr. Susan McCarthy focused on Chinese politics. Faculty members speak on the topics in which their expertise is centered. In addition, several episodes have been produced on American politics, including the 2018 midterm elections.
In addition, student involvement in Beyond Your News Feed has grown since the formation of the podcast.
Regan Wind ’20 works as a podcast engineer, managing production, editing, and uploading. In the future, more students in the department could become involved in the podcast, especially those working on research projects that could be used as topics for an episode.
Although Beyond Your News Feed is produced by members of the political science department, it is available as a resource to the entire Providence College community, including current students, alumni, and other faculty and staff.
“I hope students can gain more in-depth insights into political events by listening to Beyond Your News Feed,” Hudson said, explaining that the podcast, once it falls into a regular schedule, can be expected to comment on political events soon after they happen.
Members of the PC community who want to gain a more in-depth understanding of worldwide political events, regardless of their major or background, can access Beyond Your News Feed at www.soundcloud.com/pcpolysci or on an installed podcast app.