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This is the transcript of a talk given at the Brock University Humanities Research Institute (HRI) Spring Symposium on 14 April, 2025. This is a modified four minute version of the talk I gave at the Brock University 3MT (Three Minute Thesis) competition in March.

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Do you remember the last time you sat around a campfire, eating smores, and sharing stories?  We share our campfire stories with people we know and trust.

But today’s technology means our stories no longer stay at the campfire. Podcasting allows us to consume stories easily, from almost anywhere in the world and from anyone, whether we know them or not.

In the past two decades, podcasting has moved from being a niche and nerdy hobby to being widely embraced by everyone from celebrities to politicians. They exist in an unregulated space, where anyone can say anything—and they do.

This is where my research comes in. I ask how podcasters use intimacy and trust to influence our opinions and public conversations on critical issues.

I explore these questions through interview conversations, autoethnography, and transcript analysis using digital tools. I draw on theories about social relationships, media, and communication.  And, of course, I listen closely to a lot of podcasts.

Here’s one example: Toronto Police Services launched their own podcast, 24 Shades of Blue, at the height of the Black Lives Matters protest. From the first episode, the hosts establish themselves as sympathetic to police. They reinforce a narrative of dangerous police work in part by borrowing from the true-crime genre.

Ethical true crime holds up a critical lens to law enforcement. The podcast host scrutinizes injustices in the criminal justice system. They frame the story to centre the victims and to question systemic violence. Ethical true crime calls for listeners’ introspection and wider societal changes.

Toronto Police, however, use unsolved crimes of vulnerable people to present themselves as the heroes. Police exist in a state of exception, which grants them certain powers and authority from the state. The Toronto police use that authority, combined with the intimacy of podcasting, to produce their propaganda.  They use their podcast to emphasize a dangerous world that justifies their ballooning budgets.

Instead of fostering healthy conversations about crime, the language and framing the police use adds to online toxicity. Rather than seeking restorative justice, they further stigmatize criminals. And a look at their YouTube comments shows how they encourage polarization on an already controversial issue.

Stories reinforce our sense of who we are and what we value as both individuals and a society. They can bring us together and foster cooperation, or they can deepen divisions and promote distrust and misunderstanding.

Podcasts share stories in an intimate way, building a sense of connection and trust between listener and host. Audio bypasses our initial biases and stereotypes, facilitating the creation of a trusting parasocial relationship. Persuasive podcasters use techniques that leverage the intimacy of audio and fosters a sense of familiarity. (I may have used a few of those techniques here!) Hosts become people listeners think they know and trust, letting down their guard against disinformation and propaganda.

So the next time you listen to a podcast, consider who you are trusting and how they’re influencing you.

Whose campfire are you really sitting at?

Selected Bibliography

Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Translated by Kevin Attell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Battles, Kathleen, and Amanda Keeler. 2022. “True Crime and Audio Media.” In Routledge Companion to Radio & Podcast Studies, 188–97.

Corbett, Erin. 2020. “Copaganda: A Look into the Subversive Ways Police Ask for Sympathy.” July 1, 2020. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/07/9887229/copaganda-police-propaganda-protests-meaning.

Correia, David, and Tyler Wall. 2018. Police: A Field Guide. London: Verso.

Coxon, Shawna. 2020. “Proposal for a Toronto Police Service (Service) Podcast.” Internal memo. Toronto: Toronto Police Services. (Obtained through Freedom of Access to Information request.)

Keeler, Amanda. 2021. “Listening to the Aftermath of Crime: True Crime Podcasts.” In Saving New Sounds: Podcast Preservation and Historiography, edited by Jeremy Wade Morris and Eric Hoyt, 124–34. University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11435021.

Habermas, Jurgen. 2023. A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics. Polity.

King, Thomas. 2003. The Truth About Stories. Anansi Press.

Phillips, Nickie, and Nicholas Chagnon. 2024. “From Defund to Refund the Police: The Hegemonic Rupture and Repair of Policing Logics.” Crime Media Culture, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590241306011.

Rieti, John. 2023. “Toronto Police Spending $337K on a Podcast to Avoid Perception They’re Making ‘Copaganda.’” CBC. February 14, 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tps-podcast-costs-revealed-1.6746905.

Sienkiewicz, Matt, and Deborah Jaramillo. 2019. “Podcasting, the Intimate Self, and the Public Sphere.” Popular Communication 17 (4): 268–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2019.1667997.

Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard. 2014. Trust. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.

Swiatek, Lukasz. 2018. “The Podcast as an Intimate Bridging Medium.” In Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media, edited by Dario Llinares, Neil Fox, and Richard Berry, 173–87. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003002185.

Toronto Police Services. 2022. “Corporate Communications: Season 2 of 24 Shades of Blue with Obie & Ax Podcast.” Briefing Note. Toronto Police Services. (Obtained through Freedom of Access to Information request.)

Weingarten, Naama. 2024. “Toronto Police Board Approves $46.2M Budget Increase for 2025.” CBC News. December 12, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-police-budget-increase-1.7409300.