Citizen news podcasts and engaging journalism: The formation of a counter-public sphere in South Korea

Abstract

This study examines what roles citizen news podcasts of South Korea play, based on two unique concepts—carnivalism and engaging journalism. To this end, the current study content analysed the content of 11 citizen news podcasts that are most popular in this country and conducted interviews with 10 professional journalists. The findings reveal that through the use of comedic techniques such as humour, parody, and satire, the discourse of citizen podcasts transgresses existing social and cultural hierarchies and subverts a range of authoritative discourses by mainstream media. The analysis also finds that the discourse in citizen news podcasts takes on the nature of engaging journalism, which motivates ordinary individuals who are left largely disillusioned from mainstream journalism to engage in elite-challenging political action. Professional journalists admitted that citizen news podcasts provide an opportunity to re-evaluate the journalism norms and practices of South Korea.

Keywords

• podcast
• carnivalism
• engaging journalism
• satire