Creating communities through podcasts

Reported by Maxim Fossey

The ability of podcasts to create a sense of friendship between the listener and the host is uniting local communities of listeners, says the leader of a local podcast club.

Podcast enthusiasts from around the globe come together once a month for the Podcast Brunch Club, where they discuss podcasts related to a monthly theme. The Vancouver brunch club chapter, organized by Daniel Mathews, is one of a growing number of chapters worldwide, with clubs in cities from Washington to Moscow to Shanghai.

Adela Mizrachi, founder of the first PBC in Chicago, said she is honoured that so many people are joining the brunch club, and are willing to be open and connect with strangers.

“I’m completely amazed and shocked to be honest, that it turned into something as big as it did,” Mizrachi said.

As podcasting continues to increase in popularity, Mizrachi said she thinks that podcast clubs could be replacing book clubs.

“Podcasts lend themselves into a multitasking society, and books are hard to dedicate time into,”  Mizrachi said.

Local co-hosts Ian Bushfield and Scott de Lange Boom said they started producing PolitiCoast in Oct. 2016 to fill a B.C. politics niche that they hadn’t yet heard in the form of a podcast.

Bushfield said the minimal equipment needed to produce podcasts is a big part of why the community of content is continuing to grow.

“It’s so easy in fact, to get a podcast out there that the joke is: what’s two guys and a microphone? It’s just a podcast.” he said. “With that it means there’s a lot better content out there.”