Podcasts as an alternative/complementary source of education. Case study of the first podcast on sexual and reproductive health education in the Republic of Moldova

Absztrakt (kivonat)

Podcasts are a media phenomenon, first mentioned in 2004 (Hammersley), has generated much debate and controversy in academia. Discussions are between the fact that podcasts are radio-specific classical material types (Marcu, 2019) and scholars who mention that podcasts are an independent media source (Menduni, 2007) (Berry, 2016). The paper also examines how digitization has influenced the popularity of podcasts (Llinares et al., 2018). The thesis also focuses on the educational utility of podcasts, based on studies carried out in the universities of the USA, Great Britain, and Italy by researchers Belanger (2005), Stothart (2006), Tysome (2006), Copley (2007), and Lazzari (2009). The research question to which the author will find an answer in this paper is "To what extent is it necessary to express reproductive and sexual health education through specialized podcasts?". The emphasis is on the case study of the Republic of Moldova and the first education podcast on sexual and reproductive health in the country, Sexplicații. In the thesis, to answer the research question, the author analyzed seven in-depth interviews, a questionnaire, and the content of the most popular and least popular editions of the Sexplicaţii podcast. As a result, it has been identified that Moldova has enormous potential in podcasting in general and educational podcasts in particular. Also, the need for a sexual and reproductive education podcast in the national arena has been outlined since, at school, the taboo topics in society are spoken very selectively or not at all. In the future, researchers should also focus on the administrative and governmental side, which would allow the possibility of implementing formal podcasts in the school system, because, at the theoretical level, the paper identified that the implementation of podcasts in the education system is a success. Therefore, since some teachers are reluctant to discuss sexual and reproductive education, podcasts could be an optimal solution for the gradual education of the younger generation concerning these topics.