Way Beyond the Radio. Looking at the remediation processes in the podcast S-Town through the lenses of Gérard Genette’s theories

Abstract

Placing itself within a broader debate on the role of literary theory and its tools in media studies, this article applies Gérard Genette’s notions of transtextuality and paratextuality to the study of podcasts’ remediation processes. After providing a theoretical framework on the textual nature of the podcast, which justifies the application of the Genettian theories to this medium, this work proceeds with analyzing the ground-breaking podcast S-Town’s remediation of the radio, the novel, and, of its predecessor, Serial. Re-thinking the remediation processes in terms of transtexual and paratextual relationships not only helps identify which aspects of the different media are remediated but also highlights the narrative function these remediations often perform. The analysis thus reveals that in S Town, remediation processes are used to create a metanarrative discourse about the distinctive mediacharacteristics of the podcast. Finally, the article questions how the relationship between the tools of literary theory and theory itself manifests within this analysis.