Participatory Podcasting with Sadie Ryan

Amplified is an audio blog series about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. This month, we’re sharing a conversation between Stacey and Sadie Ryan where they discuss Sadie’s new project”My Voice My Glasgow”, participatory podcasting, and the importance of podcast as research method.

• Transcript

  Sadie Ryan 0:00
  [Intro Music] The most important lesson I’ve learned myself…really take my own podcasting scholarship seriously.

  Natalie Dusek 0:12
  Welcome to Amplified an audio blog, a podcast about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. I’m your host, Natalie Dusek, and today on the podcast, Stacey sits down with Dr Sadie Ryan, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. Sadie’s work includes her podcast Accentricity, where she learns about people and how they talk.

  Sadie Ryan 0:36
  This is Accentricity, a podcast where I examine the eccentricities of language and identity [overlapping audio from podcast epis

  Natalie Dusek 0:45
  Latest on the agenda is Sadie’s new project called My Voice, My Glasgow, where podcasting is used as the main research method to explore language, culture and identity with teenage students. In this conversation, you’ll hear Sadie and Stacey discuss the joys and perils of working with genes, how podcasting became integral to Sadie’s scholarly research. And more. Thanks for being here.

  Sadie Ryan 1:09
  So I am Sadie. Sadie Ryan, and I work at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and I work in the School of Education as Lecturer in Languages and Intercultural Studies, and I use podcasting, increasingly, as a really big part of my work.

  Stacey Copeland 1:28
  So Sadie, you and I have had some awesome conversations around podcasting as research methods since we first connected late last year, I think November, December, and since then, you’ve been working on an AHRC funded research project that’s UK research funding called My Voice, My Glasgow, which explores language, culture and identity in secondary schools and uses podcasting as research method.Could you tell us a little bit more about that project, how it all got started, how is it going?

  Sadie Ryan 2:04
  Yeah, I mean, it’s a exciting time to be talking about the project, because it is very much happening right now. I guess I should maybe say a little bit about how it came about, because it had had a little bit of a journey to get to it. So I started podcasting when I was doing my PhD. I was a really nerdy PhD student who just absolutely loved what I was doing, doing research on language and identity for teenagers in particular, and particularly, teenagers who’d moved from one country to another, and I was having loads of conversations with friends and family about about what I was doing. I was obviously having lots of conversations within the university with my supervisors and my peers, but I realized that I loved talking to people outside of university about about the work, because they kind of had a different take on it, like there was, there were different different knowledges, there different experiences. And I decided, as a podcast fan, that I wanted to kind of extend those conversations into making a podcast. So I started making a podcast where I spoke. I did speak to people within the university, but I mostly spoke to people outside of universities. So I launched my podcast, which is called Accentricity, just around about the end of my PhD and and then from that, continued having conversations with people who’d listened to it, people who got in touch and just really enjoyed this dialog and sort of bringing together academic knowledge about language and non academic knowledge about language, and found it really interesting.

  So I guess from the start of my podcasting journey, I always thought of podcasting and felt that it was really part of my research practice. And I remember being quite surprised when I started to talk to people about kind of pitching ideas of using podcasting explicitly as a research method, and was told, no, that’s not how we think about podcasting in the university, I remember being told quite explicitly, you do the research and then maybe you make a podcast about it, like, that’s that’s public engagement. That’s something you do afterwards as, like a little bonus if you have some spare time, which, of course, most people don’t, right,that’s public engagement, is what I was told. And I don’t know if it’s in the UK anyway, public engagement, often it’s not funded in the same way as research, and it often is kind of thought of as an extra thing. I think it’s really important, but it’s often thought of as an extra, kind of add on at the end of the process. And I really felt really strongly. No, this is like when I’m podcast and I’m exploring questions that I have about language and identity, I’m finding out new things, like I’m this is, this is inquiry, this is, this is research. So what I’m really excited about with the My Voice, My Glasgow project, is that I’ve managed to get official, explicit funding to do this project, which officially, explicitly has podcasting as the main research methodology, which is really exciting to me. So what I’m actually doing [laughs] is I’m working in two schools in Glasgow at the moment to explore language and identity with groups of kids, teenagers, mostly who’ve moved to the UK from somewhere else, and mostly who are multilingual. And we’re exploring that by making a podcast together about language and identity in their lives. So the idea is that the kind of objective analysis is the process. So we’re making this podcast, which is going to be public. It’s going to be one of the main project outputs will be this podcast, but through the process of making it, we are I’m learning about how they think about language and identity.

  They’re also learning new things and reflecting in ways that they maybe haven’t before, and learning new skills. And one of the most interesting things has been the conversations that I’ve had with them about who might listen to their podcast and what they might think, what they might already know, what they might need, what they might need to explain to these potential imagined listeners. And I’ve been finding this process of kind of creating something for an imaginary outsider together to be just absolutely fascinating. So we’re at the stage now where we’ve recorded some content. We’re still doing more, and it’s all, I should say, it’s all been planned by the pupils. So I’ve very much seen myself as a facilitator, but very much kind of following their interests and their ideas.We have recorded some interviews, and the next stage is going to be listening back together and thinking about, what do we want to include? What do we what feels important here? I’m hoping we can do at least some of the editing together. I imagine there’ll be bits and pieces that I need to get their instructions and then go away and do some of the editing. So it’s very much this kind of co creative process of bringing my podcasting skills and experience together with their life experiences. And, yeah, it’s it’s been really, really interesting so far, and I’m having a great time.

  Stacey Copeland 7:54
  I mean, it sounds like an absolutely fascinating project when you’re thinking about, you know, podcast as research method in the broader world of academic podcasting, it seems to manifest in different ways for different people, but there is that core idea of podcasting as process, and in that process is where a lot of that new knowledge is forming. So could you speak a little bit more to how shifting your focus from podcasting as maybe part of, you know, a classic academic output or dissemination of knowledge, depending on, you know, the academic language we have to use that shift from academic output to research method. How does that change the way you approach making your podcast?

  Sadie Ryan 8:40
  The process of doing it collaboratively with the participants I’m working with has been really different. It’s involved letting go of control quite a lot. And I kind of have a bit of a working theory that almost everyone in academia is kind of a bit of a control freak on some level [laughs]

  Stacey Copeland 9:04
  [Laughs] whether before or during our process of becoming an academic [laughs]

  Sadie Ryan 9:08
  [Laughs] I think so, and that’s certainly true of me in some aspects of my work, where I want things to be maybe, maybe control freak is may be the wrong word, but like a perfectionist, right? Like I want things to be just so and I really want the thing that I’m making to be to be what I what I envisioned when I started making it. And of course, with this project, my original visions of what I wanted to make, I’ve really had to put those to the side and really follow what the participants want to make, which, because they’re young and they’re beginners, isn’t always super clear, so I’ve had to be really flexible and really fluid about the process of making, of working with them. I think the relationships we’ve developed have been super important. And I should say as well, I’m working with, I’m spending time at two schools in Glasgow, and I’m I’m going once a week to each school for a whole school year. So I’m spending a really long time with the kids.

  And that’s been really vital, because not even so much because they’re developing new skills, although that’s true, but because of that necessity of building a really good working relationship with them, which did not come straight away and didn’t come easy. I think that so the youngest of them are 13, and the oldest are 15, and when you’re that age, you sort of rarely get asked what you want to do. Usually in school, particularly, you get told what you’re doing, trying to do something which is a little bit less hierarchical and more egalitarian has been really challenging, because that’s not really the way. That’s not their expectation, I think. And some there have been times when we’ve been making this where they have very different opinions from me of what they want to make and what they want it to sound like. And now we’re at the stage where they’re telling me their opinions, and they have really strong feelings about things that they’re expressing. Sometimes in a way that is, you know, there’s a bit of friction there. There’s a bit of conflict, and that’s been a challenge, but a really interesting challenge. But yeah, as a podcaster, I think it’s really, it’s really challenged me to work in a truly collaborative way. I mean, I’ve collaborated with people before, but we’ve maybe been coming from a more similar place, where we both have an idea and alignment of what we think a good podcast sounds like. And in this project, I’ve really had to remind myself that it’s not all about me [laughs]and but also, you know, while still having that balance of, you know, it’s not co creation if I’m not part of the creative process like that, there’s no point in me being there if I’m not saying, Okay, well, you know, this is how we would normally do things. And so, yeah, that balance has been really challenging, but I think has, I think is gonna make me a better podcaster.

  Stacey Copeland 12:26
  So I’m really curious. You know, I don’t work with youth. It honestly kind of terrifies me to do so maybe because of that control element too, like, what are they gonna do? I don’t know, but could you give an example. What has it been like then to work with students and and really give them the reins of deciding what they want to make? What do they want to make?

  Sadie Ryan 12:51
  Yeah, so the I’m working at two schools, and they’ve gone in quite different directions, which has been interesting. At both schools, I’ve kind of chosen to work with a pre existing friendship group. I realized it was going to be really important to work with kids who already knew each other and kind of had sort of pre existing working relationships within that group. Doesn’t mean they don’t argue with each other, they do [laughs]. But so the two schools, so it’s it’s really interesting the different directions they’ve gone in. So one of the schools, the friendship group are quite, quite school oriented, quite, you know, like myself do my PhD, quite nerdy kids who are really into, who really love, they’re really interested in language and identity, and they’re really interested in podcasts. So they’re kind of going to be making something, to be honest, a bit like Accentricity, the podcast I made during my PhD. That’s the kind of thing they’re interested in doing. The other school has been really different. So the other school I’m working with, I’m working with a group of girls who are all Muslim and have all moved to the UK from Middle East and North Africa, and they really were interested in coming at the subject through their own experiences and identities. For them, they really wanted to explore themselves and their communities. So they said, can we make a podcast about what it means to be a young Muslim in the UK? And that’s been a really interesting process, because I think they are all really, really like working something out about themselves and their identities as we go. So they are going to be interviewing people of the same age group who are Muslim from from their own school, and then from other schools in Glasgow, and kind of comparing their experiences, which I think is going to be really interesting, particularly because all of them have moved to Glasgow, and they all think of being Muslim and being a migrant to the UK as being really interconnected. And until we started doing this project together, they weren’t aware that there are communities in Glasgow, like Muslim, Scottish Muslim, communities of people who, like sort of second or third generation migrants whose maybe grandparents even might have been born in the UK, some of them. So I think it’s going to be really interesting for them to speak to those people and to kind of, yeah. Think about how identity can kind of shift across generations like that, the kind of differences, cultural differences that are maintained and whether people are still speaking the languages that their grandparents brought with them. So I think that’s going to be really, really fascinating.

  So with that group, one of the moments that I thought was really, really interesting was when we started to plan together what questions they wanted to ask. And at first they really, they really, kind of struggled with that at first, I because I opened it in quite a I started the conversation in quite an open way. I said, what do you want to what do you want to say to these other young Muslims from different schools you haven’t met before? And the first question they wrote down was, how are you? And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah. And then they wrote, what’s your name? And I was like, Yeah, okay, these are, these are good questions. But you know, what do you want to once we’ve got past we will ask those questions. What we’ve got once we’ve got past that, what do you want to know? And it really took a little bit of time until and they ended up coming up with, like, like, really good questions. At first, the questions were very general. So they were sort of saying, have you what experiences of Islamophobia and racism? Have you have you seen these things happen? Have you experienced these things? Do you think these things are a problem in the UK? And I was like, that’s really good question. And then we started thinking more and more about, because I’d been spending some time with them already. I’d been chatting to them a lot, and I think a really big thing with that group has been kind of finding the line, or if there are maybe sort of disrupting their imagined line between a conversation and an interview. So I remember saying to them, okay, so when I asked you guys, they were really interested in talking about wearing the hijab, and kind of choices around wearing the hijab and what that means to people as this kind of public symbol of identity and faith. But at first they couldn’t figure out what question they wanted to ask. They just wrote down hijab on their bit of paper, but they couldn’t work out, like, how to ask that question. And I remember saying to them, Well, when I started talking to you guys about wearing the hijab, it was when we started getting into the specifics of, like, what was the first day? When do you remember the first time you put on a hijab? What was that like? What happened that day? Who taught you how to put on your hijab? How did you learn? And we started to kind of think more about the specifics of those questions, and kind of getting people to tell stories, rather than just to speak in general terms.

  One of the things that’s been really interesting is just that, I think I may be underestimated going into the project, just how differently teenagers think about media a lot of the time. So these guys do listen to podcasts, but they’re not the sort of podcast that I listen to. And they they do, they do, they they knew. They know interview like they know what an interview is, but they’re used to seeing interviews as kind of chopped up segments on Tiktok. So really, kind of bringing together our different media literacies has been an interesting part of the project that I think I wasn’t necessarily. I had ideas about how I thought the project might go and what I thought the challenges might be, but I hadn’t quite thought through how challenging but also how interesting that that part of it was going to be.

  Stacey Copeland 19:12
  I definitely want to come back to this question of challenges and surprises in the project, but I also really picked up on a thread was resonating with me, and I know is really your main research area, which is language and identity. But I heard in your response here and in stories that you’re sharing, podcasting really being used as a tool that can help people better understand their identity, explore identity, perhaps build confidence in discussing and building community and connection around identity, and this is a really interesting aspect of the way that you’re approaching podcasting as a research method here, especially in the context of your project, is My Voice, My Glasgow. But if we think about, you know, who is that city, right? Who is seen as Scottish or part of a nation or or part of community, becomes a question that I think podcasting can really help us explore and give over the tools and hand over the mic to people who can, who can really speak to different aspects of those questions, not just from a scholarly standpoint, but from a wider breadth of experiences. And you mentioned, you know, earlier on, thinking about who is the audience for this work. And I’m curious here, how did the students perceive the answer to this question of who is the audience, versus how maybe you were anticipating this project to go and I ask this, of course, like we’ve had conversations around this as well, like, who is academic podcasting for? Or what is a podcast within the institution? What is the purpose of that? Like, who is it speaking to? And that really is a big question then in how I’m sure you and the students were working through shaping the questions and and how you want these podcasts to unfold.

  Sadie Ryan 21:16
  Right at the beginning of the project, I’m glad that I did kind of lay some groundwork in the very first sessions and taking things very slowly, just working things through. And I did ask them right at the beginning the participants, who do they want to listen? Who do they think might listen? And yeah, the group of girls who are exploring Muslim identity, immediately said other hijabi Muslim girls. So for them, the hijab is a really important as like a really important marker of their identity and their faith. Very difficult sometimes for them to wear the hijab in school, because it’s very public. People, people comment on it, people ask them about it. It kind of draws attention to them as a minority in a lot of ways, but really, really important to them. So they they wanted other hijabi Muslim girls of their age to listen and to feel less alone. That’s shifted. So they still do want those people to listen, but they’ve increasingly started to say that as we’ve been talking more about Islamophobia and racism, they’ve been saying that they feel that maybe a lot of their peers, or people in Scotland generally, don’t understand enough about about Islam. They don’t understand what it means to be Muslim, and they really want to kind of educate people and dispel, dispel some myths really about, about what it means to be Muslim and to be a teenage girl and living in living in the UK. So actually, I think there’s been a shift from wanting to speak to people from within their own community to wanting to speak to people to wanting to educate people outside of that community about their community. So that’s been a real shift.

  Stacey Copeland 23:15
  And so you know, most people who listen to Amplified are other academics interested in open access, interested in podcasting as a part of their academic practice. You know, what advice would you offer others who are maybe wanting to use podcasting as a participatory research method in their own work? What are some of the best advice? You know, wisdom from the challenges that you’ve faced so far?

  Sadie Ryan 23:41
  Because there is also that element of making sure that they are kept safe, making sure that they I suppose, that they’re happy with what’s going to be made public now, but also that we agree that they’re probably going to be happy with it in a few years time. Because once something is public, it’s public. So the kind of ethics of making a public output with a group of teenagers from a marginalized group has been something that’s been at the forefront of our minds the whole way through. And it’s, it’s obviously really important. But I think, yeah, I think, although it’s challenging, I think, I think it is really important because, I mean, people of that age group are online anyway, so it’s kind of thinking through the what it means to say something in public, and taking the time to kind of think about that is, it’s quite an important pedagogical aspect of the project. I think, as well having the potential to, in some small way, shift public perceptions and have people listen and understand things better, and for the young people to play a role in that, I think, is really important, because people don’t listen to teenage girls that much a lot of the time. So having this way of working with them, and the hope that people will really listen to what they have to say and listen to their voices is really important, I think, and in terms of the ethics of it, yeah, I think it is a lot of the time about being mindful that you do have to think with the participants. So I think it’s about, it’s about thinking with people, right? And keeping people involved throughout the process. Yeah, I guess my main principle has just been to make sure that I don’t do anything without conversation with my participants.And, yeah, making sure to kind of continue that conversation, not just in the moment of recording the interviews, but right up to the point of release and afterwards as well.

  Stacey Copeland 25:48
  Yeah, so so much resonating here. You know, how do we both create a space of safety and ethical protocol, but then also make them feel like this is something they really care about contributing to and something that will be lasting for them after, you know, your grant money runs out and you’re on to the next project. So these kinds of questions, I think, are just like, you know, we could probably talk forever about them, but bring up some really interesting, you know, future food for thought, for research as well. But before I let you go, Sadie, I did want to know more about when we can hear some of this work, like, when can we actually hear what these these teens want to share with us, with the My Voice, My Glasgow project?

  Sadie Ryan 26:36
  So I’m not sure exactly when, but I imagine the schools in Scotland shut for the summer at the end of June for six weeks, and I imagine there’s going to be some planning and final polishing and post production stuff to do then. And then, I’m hoping that I’ll continue to see the participants after when the schools go back in August, and that might be when we kind of get ready for the launch and listen together and stuff. So yeah, I’d say by the end of 2025 probably. But yeah, I’m taking it slow and not not letting myself feel too rushed.

  Natalie Dusek 27:14
  [Outro Music] Thanks for listening to Amplified, an audio blog, podcast about the sounds of scholarship. If you have comments or additional thoughts on our conversation today or on any of Amplify’s initiatives, please don’t hesitate to reach out See you next time. [Outro Music]

• Guest Bio

  Dr Sadie Ryan is Lecturer in Languages and Intercultural Studies in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on the role of language in identity construction, particularly in migration contexts. Her podcast Accentricity (www.accentricity-podcast.com) was shortlisted for Best New Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, and won the Steady International Media Award in 2019. In 2023 she was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council Early Career Grant for her project ‘My Voice, My Glasgow’, which uses podcasting as a participatory method to explore linguistic diversity in high schools. She is founder and co-ordinator of the University of Glasgow Podcasting Collective.

• Links and Resources

  Accentricity Podcast

  My Voice My Glasgow

  Intro + Outro Theme Music: Pxl Cray – Blue Dot Studios (2016)

  Written and produced by: Stacey Copeland & Natalie Dusek