Schuyler Whelden: I’m Schuyler Whelden.

Juliana Cantarelli Vita: And I’m Juliana Cantarelli Vita.

SW: This is Massa, a podcast about Brazilian music and culture.

JCV: Schuyler and I are musicians and music scholars. In each episode, we dive into a specific genre, song, artist, or issue in Brazilian music to try to understand how it works and what it means.

SW: In this episode, we are diving into a podcast to see how it works.

JCV: Which one?

SW: This one!

JCV: Oh, right! Well, we haven’t released an episode in a while, but that’s not because we aren’t working. In fact, we’ve never worked harder! We’ve been researching, interviewing, and recording episodes all this time.

SW: As we’ve worked, we’ve received quite a few comments and queries from you all, our listenership.

JCV: Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out to us. Your feedback is invaluable. I can’t believe how far this little podcast has reached. 

SW: That’s not to say we’re done with feedback! 

JCV: We’d love to hear from you if you have other thoughts, questions, or ideas. Email us at essefoimassa@gmail.com.

SW: In addition to all of your incredible messages, we’ve also taken the podcast on the road, so to speak.

JCV: Yes! We wanted to get some feedback from colleagues and collaborators, so we’ve presented at a number of academic conferences.

SW: We’ve shared some of our content and even led a few workshops on our processes.

JCV: You might think of these presentations as a kind of “peer review” process for our work on the podcast.

SW: In academic publishing, we are used to sending our work to editors of journals and presses to be blind reviewed by other music educators, ethnomusicologists, and the like. But since we are self-producing and self-publishing here, we decided to solicit feedback from our colleagues in presentation form at academic meetings.

JCV: We thought we might share a couple of those presentations with you all.

SW: Indeed! This episode and the following episode are both, shall we say, “interludes.”

JCV: Yes, that’s what I suggested we call them.

SW: It is a great suggestion!

JCV: Each of these interludes is a podcast-friendly version of one or more conference presentations.

SW: In addition to giving you all a “peek behind the scenes,” we thought they also could serve as a little tide-me-over until our second season launches later this year.

JCV: We hope you enjoy them!

Podcasts and Education

SW: Working on Massa has inspired a lot of reflection about the possibilities and limitations of using podcasts for educational purposes.

JCV: Podcasts appear to be an ideal medium for learning about music. They are audio-based, which helps re-orient students and instructors away from visual metaphors and aids. 

SW: In addition to their utility in remote learning, they can substitute for or supplement readings in formal classroom environments. 

JCV: And due to the numerous distribution structures for podcasts, they are also easily disseminated to publics outside of institutions of higher learning, making them available to people other than our students.

SW: But, as you and I have discovered, using podcasts as an educational tool comes with a host of challenges. First, they can reproduce and reinforce dominant power structures in the topics they approach and in ways they teach listeners to listen (McDaniel and Achondo 2020; McDaniel, 2022). 

JCV: And though their wide distribution networks seemingly contribute to the Internet’s long-promised democratization of education, they are subject to the same access issues as all resources: social class, geography, language, racial and ethnic background, and other factors.

SW: So our challenge was and is to create a tool that is useful to educators and learners, something that helps to investigate musical cultures and describe sounds and practices without falling back on Eurocentric language and approaches to musical study.

JCV: Moreover, we hope to draw attention to and open spaces for voices and communities that are either underrepresented or impenetrable due to linguistic barriers and geographic distances. 

SW: That goal comes with the further challenge of examining our own positionality and privilege.

JCV: We’re guided by a number of questions: Who gets to study? What gets studied? Whose voices are included? How do we study this music?

SW: In this episode, we’ll discuss these challenges, the solutions we’ve found for them, and the work we still have ahead of us. Along the way, we’ll share some specific moments that illustrate this dynamic.

Who Gets to Study

JCV: The first question guiding us is “who gets to study.”

SW: Scholars have claimed that the Internet could and would serve as a democratizing force in education, offering individuals and communities access to materials they could otherwise not attain or afford (Acemoglu et al 2014).

JCV: Of course, in many cases, these materials still serve the same people who have access to traditional educational systems. Smaragda Chrysostomu (2017), for example, points out that 80% of the students in Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, come from the richest 6% of the population. And that only about 4% of students even complete the courses (221).

SW: On the other hand, Chrysostomu notes that students are more receptive to non-traditional educational tools if they are embedded in platforms they already use (222). And given the popularity of podcasts, there is some promise inherent in adopting this medium. 

JCV: Previous research into podcasting within educational contexts has found a number of specific advantages. These include meeting the needs of students with different learning styles (Alexander 2005), promoting flexibility in accessing learning materials (Chan and Lee 2005; Levy 2006), generating greater inclusivity (Cebeci and Tekdal 2006), and enhancing student engagement and reflection (Baird and Fisher 2006).

SW: So, while we remain skeptical that there could be a technological solution for a social problem, we are bolstered by the possibility that podcasts can present for learners.

JCV: Scholars have debated the importance of so-called public scholarship, that is, research made available outside the academy, both in terms of literal access and in terms of the language in which it is presented.

SW: We don't necessarily mean language like “English” and “Portuguese.”

JCV: Though that too.

SW: Indeed, but also in not using big words that have special meanings when small words that more people know will do.

JCV: Like, “applied ethnomusicology.”

SW: Exactly. The term “applied ethnomusicology” is kind of like “public scholarship” within the discipline of ethnomusicology.

JCV: Ethnomusicology being the study of music in/as culture.

SW: Oh yeah. That too. Well, “applied ethnomusicology,” according to the  ethnomusicologist Jeff Todd Titon (1992) is “Work whose immediate end is not research and the flow of knowledge inside intellectual communities but, action in the world outside of archives and universities” (315).

JCV: Which is pretty much what we’re trying to do here.

SW: Indeed. We are inspired by the incredible anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger. He has argued that ethnomusicologists need “to reach out consciously to diverse audiences” as a way to “contribute through the knowledge we are privileged to have had the opportunity to learn” (Seeger, 2006, 222-223). 

JCV: In other words, why only share our work with the few people who subscribe to academic journals or are enrolled at the universities where we teach? 

SW: How can this podcast allow us to make our research and teaching materials available to more people, both in the language we use and how we distribute it?

JCV: We have a bit of anecdotal evidence that the listenership for Massa includes both university-affiliated people and those whose interest in Brazilian music stems from musical practice or listening tastes.

SW: (Yes, we are referring to your emails and dms.)

JCV: And folks in many disciplines, including ethnomusicology, history, music education, and Portuguese, have told us that they assign episo