Podcast as assessment: entanglement and affect in the law school

ABSTRACT

This article documents the “Orders in Decay” project, in which students taking the Law and Disorder module at the University of Warwick were required to produce a podcast as part of their assessment. The article situates the pedagogic benefits of student podcasting through the fields of legal storytelling, law and literature, and digital storytelling. It uses these to theorise three key moments in the podcasting process: the interview with an expert as an affective encounter with the ideas, the production of a complex and layered podcast that excites an affective response, and publication of the best of the podcasts to shift the students’ horizons of communication. Ultimately, the article suggests that the undergraduate is uniquely positioned between worlds – neither an expert nor a member of the public. As such, they are perfectly placed to mediate ideas and discussion in an affecting manner.