Note: rewritten after class on 10/07 and after reading the script.
Obviously, I don’t understand Spanish, but I could still hear roughly what was going on, but I’m obviously not sure what the people in the podcast were talking about. In terms of sounds, you could hear a scene change with a change in the environment. For example, going from the host to an interview, the host wasn’t as clear and you could hear ambient noises, such as birds chirping. The music also helped build certain feelings within the podcast, so for more serious stuff, the music’s BPM ramped up a bit. The advertisement in the middle was also pretty obvious, since the company name is the same as in other NPR podcast adverts, and had a change in the narrator. The recorded soundbites were also pretty apparent, as they had more noise than with the normaly podcast.
After reading the script, there wasn’t really any interviews, where Monica poses questions for someone to answer. There were some exchanges, where it seemed like Monica explained situations further, and helped lead on Nelson telling a story. The most impactful one of these was toward the end, where Monica discusses how Nelson has to come back empty handed. It shows the emotional impact of such a big moment: everyone’s super excited to get a cut of an inheritence, and they spend all their money but they get nothing, and now Nelson has to keep the shame.
A few questions for Camila Segura:
- The podcast is about neglected and under-reported stories. Where do you find these stories? Do people send them to you, or do you actively go out to look for them?
- What is the listening club community for Radio Ambulante like in the US, since (from what I’ve seen) they mostly seem to be in Latin America? I know there are communities around the US that speak mostly Spanish. For example, I live next to a city called Lawrence, which is 80% Hispanic or Latino, up in Massachusetts.