Jubilee for the MKV Podcast - “We have a long list of new things to talk about”

“Recently, sitting and going through a pile of handwritten exam papers, it struck me that I didn’t know if would be able to read them.”

The podcast’s presenter, Staffan Ericson, has just started recording episode 49 of the MKV Podcast in the studio on the sixth floor of Södertörn University Library. The guest for this recording in mid-March is Thomas Götselius, a professor of comparative literature at Stockholm University, who recently published a book called Författarens hand (The Author’s Hand), which explores the history of handwriting. Handwriting is also the topic of today’s podcast, which will be broadcast in April.

Ericson has his laptop on his knee, and next to him in the studio is his co-presenter Anne Kaun, who has Götselius’s book on the table in front of her. They take turns asking questions. Inside the control room, sound engineer Florence Augustini makes sure the sound levels are just right.

After about 40 minutes, Anne Kaun rounds off:
“We’ll have to wrap it up here – what song would you like as the outro?”
Götselius chooses Nick Cave’s “We Call Upon the Author”.

Spontaneous conversations is the goal

“It’s important not to over-prepare, as the podcast is better that way – it feels less academic. After all, this supposed to be more of an interesting conversation than a lecture,” says Ericson afterwards.

“We try not to give the guests too many instructions beforehand. The conversation flows better if they speak off the cuff, and they know their subject very well anyway,” Kaun explains.

Both she and Ericson are researchers and lecturers in Media and Communication Studies at the School of Culture and Education. They say the idea of starting a podcast came to them over a lunch during the pandemic, when they were talking about which podcasts they enjoyed. From there, it wasn’t a big step to start one of their own.

“We thought the format itself was interesting and decided we wanted to do something that would be similar to a seminar, but in a more relaxed setting. A great deal of academic knowledge is exchanged in such forums, but not many people are able to participate in them,” says Ericson.

Premiered in January 2021

The first episode was broadcast in January 2021 and focused on opinion polls and the US election, featuring media researcher Bengt Johansson from the University of Gothenburg.

“We often choose a subject that’s in the news and invite a researcher or guest with a connection to it. Sometimes the podcast focuses on a topic or a new book that we’re interested in ourselves. In addition to the discussion about the guest’s research, we always include a classic text that we read with them. That section of the podcast is very popular. The important thing is that the subject should be discussed from the perspective of media and communication studies. Afterwards, some guests say that it offers a new way of thinking about their own subjects,” says Kaun.

“It's nice to step a little outside the box of what we normally do,” says Ericson.

Produces one episode a month

Ideas for the episodes are hatched once a semester, when Kaun and Ericson go out together for dinner.

“That’s when we’ll come up with themes for the next semester, and we stick to them. Then there are always a few spur-of-the-moment ideas that we use,” says Kaun.

They feel that their different research backgrounds complement each other well: Ericson comes from the humanities, with a background in the history of ideas and comparative literature, while Kaun has a stronger focus on the social sciences and investigates how media technologies interact with people and society.

On average, each semester they produce one episode a month. The fiftieth episode has already been produced and will be released in May.

“It’ll be a ‘best-of’ podcast, with a selection from previous years,” says Kaun.

Looking back, do you have any favourites?

“An episode on psychic mediums, where we visited a fortune-teller,” says Kaun.

“I found the one on synthetic data interesting – that was a new area for me,” says Ericson.

They agree that other memorable episodes include the one about technical glitches with Edmond Bacchus, an AV technician at Södertörn University, and that on the gig economy featuring taxi driver Cathrine Lindh, known as ‘Taximammi’, who campaigns for better working conditions for taxi drivers.

How long will you continue with the podcast?

“As long as we have subjects to talk about and the ideas are flowing. We have a long list of new things to talk about,” says Kaun.

As they leave the studio, they have already started discussing new podcast ideas for the autumn, and a few book titles and researchers’ names are mentioned as possibilities.