Podcasts, as a form of digital oral media, share meaningful ground with Indigenous storytelling traditions while simultaneously introducing tensions that deserve careful scrutiny. As Tekobbe (2024) articulates, Indigenous storytelling is not simply a delivery mechanism for information but a living, relational practice embedded in cultural context, seasonal appropriateness, and community accountability. The spoken word has always been central to Indigenous knowledge transmission, and in this respect, a podcast that centers Indigenous voices can honor that tradition by preserving tone, emotion, and the cadence of the storyteller in ways that written text cannot replicate. Cunsolo Willox et al. (2012) found in their work with the Rigolet Inuit community that digital audio and video formats allowed listeners to "hear the emotions in the voice" and feel connected to the storyteller in ways that other research methods simply could not achieve. A podcast, operating on similar audio principles, can function as what Cunsolo Willox et al. (2012) describe as a site of "communion" rather than mere information transfer. However, a podcast also fundamentally challenges the relational and contextual nature of traditional Indigenous storytelling. Tekobbe (2024) reminds us that some stories are bound by season, ceremony, or community relationship, and are only meant to be shared by specific knowledge holders with specific audiences. A podcast dissolves those boundaries entirely, broadcasting to an anonymous global audience with no cultural accountability, no reciprocity, and no way to honor the protocols that govern what knowledge can be shared, when, and with whom. This stripping away of context risks what Cunsolo Willox et al. (2012) warned about in narrative research more broadly: the possibility that sharing stories without care can become "an act of colonization" that reifies and flattens the very communities it claims to represent.
The question of preservation and digital sovereignty adds another layer of complexity. Hausknecht et al. (2021) documented how the Nak'azdli Whut'en community used digital storytelling workshops not only to pass knowledge from Elders to youth, but to ensure that the resulting stories "were kept by the community and for the community," rather than housed by outside researchers or institutions. This principle of community ownership is central to what scholars describe as digital sovereignty, the right of Indigenous peoples to control how their knowledge is created, stored, accessed, and disseminated. A podcast produced and distributed by Indigenous creators on their own terms can be a powerful expression of that sovereignty, functioning as what Tekobbe (2024) frames as a tool of survivance and self-determination in digital space. In this way, podcasting as a medium can serve decolonization not by rejecting technology but by reclaiming it, refusing to pass through colonial gatekeepers such as mainstream publishers or broadcasters, and asserting that Indigenous peoples define and circulate their own stories on their own terms. Yet this potential is deeply dependent on who controls the production. When non-Indigenous producers, platforms, or academic institutions shape how Indigenous stories are packaged and distributed, the result can reproduce the same power asymmetries that Gupta and Trehan (2022) identified in their analysis of Wikipedia, where dominant systems of knowledge production systematically erase and misrepresent marginalized voices, embedding bias into the very infrastructure that claims neutrality. A podcast is not immune to these dynamics; the editorial choices of framing, music, pacing, and platform selection all carry ideological weight. The strengths of podcasting as a medium for Indigenous storytelling are real and significant, including accessibility, reach, the preservation of oral voice, and the capacity to build networks of solidarity across geographic distances. However, its limitations are equally real: the flattening of cultural protocols, the transformation of living relational knowledge into a fixed and reproducible commodity, and the ongoing risk that the medium will serve external audiences more than it serves the communities whose stories it carries.
References
Cunsolo Willox, A., Harper, S. L., Edge, V. L., 'My Word': Storytelling and Digital Media Lab, & Rigolet Inuit Community Government. (2012). Storytelling in a digital age: Digital storytelling as an emerging narrative method for preserving and promoting indigenous oral wisdom. Qualitative Research, 13(2), 127–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112446105
Gupta, S., & Trehan, K. (2022). Twitter reacts to absence of women on Wikipedia: A mixed-methods analysis of #VisibleWikiWomen campaign. Media Asia, 49(2), 130–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2021.2003100
Hausknecht, S., Freeman, S., Martin, J., Nash, C., & Skinner, K. (2021). Sharing Indigenous Knowledge through intergenerational digital storytelling: Design of a workshop engaging Elders and youth. Educational Gerontology, 47(7), 285–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2021.1927484
Tekobbe, C. (2024). Indigenous voices in digital spaces. University Press of Colorado / Utah State University Press.
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