Im The Atlantic-Artikel «Inside the Podcast Brain: Why Do Audio Stories Captivate?» vom 16.4.2015 wird erklärt, was uns an Hörbüchern und Podcasts fesselt (via NY Public Library auf Twitter):
«But anyone who has gotten hooked on a podcast knows that audio can be much more than just narration. Emma Rodero, a communications professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, studies how audio productions retain people’s attention. Her work has shown that a dramatized audio structure, using voice actors who tell the story exclusively through dialogue, stimulate listeners’ imagination more than a typical “voice of God” narration. Participants who listened to the dramatized structure reported that they generated more vivid images in their minds, and conjured the images more quickly and easily than those in the narration condition. They also reported being more emotionally aroused and interested in the story.
Another study illustrates the importance of using sound effects, sounds that represent objects and/or environments and sound shots, an effect that gives the listener a sense of space by recording a sound that’s far away. Rodero found that the use of sound effects and sound shots in an audio drama increased the level of mental imagery that listeners reported, and also caused listeners to pay more attention.
Audiobook producers are catching on, and have started rolling out new types of “audio entertainment.” A novel by best-selling crime writer Jeffrey Deaver, called The Starling Project, has only been released as an audiobook, and features characters brought to life by 29 voice actors. Adapted by famed sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game Alive, released by Audible in 2013, tells the Ender’s Game story entirely through the use of dialogue and sound effects. And companies like Graphic Audio are creating audio dramas exclusively in the style, calling it “a movie in your mind.”
The tagline captures one of the best things about audio storytelling, according to Rodero. She says that, like reading, listening to audio allows people to create their own versions of characters and scenes in the story. But she thinks listening, unlike looking at a written page, is more active, since the brain has to process the information at the pace it is played.
“Audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are constantly building your own images of the story in your mind and you’re creating your own production,” Rodero says. “And that of course, is something that you can never get with visual media.”»