In Gimlet Media’s, “The Habitat,” a mix of interviews document this amazing science experiment of a story of six volunteers living in a fake planet. The speaker in the podcast, Liza, incorporates effective techniques that make this podcast unique and worthwhile to hear. Since the first few minutes, Liza asks for the person with her to describe their surroundings. Already, she is including an important method that she uses throughout the rest of her podcast. The other person responds by giving “down to the T” details of how they were riding over “black, jagged rocks… piles standing on top of each other, as far as you can see.” Her ability to describe her surroundings, include the “informal” conversations, and the sounds that the listener can hear in the background is a huge technique used that effectively brings the listener to picture themselves there. From the splashing of the water or even riding through the rocky pavement, these sounds make it as if they were there in the moment.
Similarly, an important method she uses is giving her brief personal narrative. Her opinions and reactions almost suggest how we should feel serving as our eyes by describing this place. Her ability to describe her personal feelings that she feels towards this experience is effective in the way that she now can build that connection and relationship with the listeners. Later on in the podcast, even describes her experience and her journey to being a part of experiment which she mentions started by hearing about it, contacting them to be a part of this experience, “draining her bank account” to get a “ticket to Hawaii,” and finally, given the chance to report this scientific experiment. This technique is also seen in Hughes interview with Teen Vogue editor, Elaine Welteroth. They both effectively give the reader or listener, the hindsight of their journey and the expose the details of before, during, and after their interviews. Side conversations is also a huge method she utilizes in her podcast and it is effective because apart from being a narrator, she is also allowing for her personal opinions and experiences to shine through her interview which allows for the listener to be part of the journey, alongside them. These side conversations serve not only as comedic relief to a rather informational podcast, but it is also a manner in which she introduces each person part of the experiment, giving their age, name, hobbies and interests. This is important for the listener as it gives an exclusive of these people, really getting to know their personalities and attitudes towards this experiment. Through these recorded side conversations, she also sneaks in her interview questions to them, building each of their profiles through their responses.
In the podcast, she switches from her personal narrative to being a narrator, describing the place to its fullest detail but also then switching to a more informative tone. She gives information about Mars and shows its characteristics, in doing so, she allows for the listener to understand the situation better by being exposed to the dangers of it. Apart from this she also explains the purpose of the experiment but also touches upon the purpose of them recording it. She does this almost 4 minutes in which is effective because the beginning of her podcast began with conversations and personal narratives to catch the reader’s attention. Now she is starting to make sense of this podcast to the listener. While narrating, she gives a little background and history behind the place that they are traveling right now, giving the reader information needed to know to understand the purpose of the experiment. Her structural techniques are also a way she builds suspense and causes for the listener in this case to become intrigued. She usually ends each section by leaving the listener with a cliffhanger or an open-ended question that makes us ponder upon the experiment which keeps this suspenseful tone or has the listeners think and relate to the whole experience.
Through her methods, she accomplishes making a complete foreign place into a familiar one, where this experiment is now an experience for us.
