| dc.description.abstract | Gimlet Media’s 2016 podcast "Homecoming" has been regarded by critics as revolutionary within the genre for both its thematic and technical features, and for its choice to forgo a traditional narrator-based framing structure. As a fictional podcast, "Homecoming" remediates classical radio drama by utilizing a dialogue-heavy format and employing sound effects to create atmosphere, as well as through the use of popular screen and stage actors. The podcast also draws on traditions of found-footage horror by knitting together recorded phone calls, therapy sessions, and conversations to construct a complete story. These “authentic recordings” construct an immersive audio environment complete with background noise and cellular feedback, which raise the question of just who might be collecting them. In doing so evoke the anxiety of a post-Patriot Act, post-Snowden America, wherein privacy, even the privacy and security of one’s innermost thoughts and memories, is never guaranteed. Like found-footage horror, the effect of the aural collage created by these effects muddles the lines between story and reality, and exposing the tenuousness of the border between the represented and the real enhances the effect of the story itself, which, though a science fiction tale, ultimately feels closer to reality than one might like to think. | |
