Podcasting’s story begins with rapid international spread: since the 2000s, sound has circulated on the web in forms grouped under one name [1]. Yet “podcast” contains a basic ambiguity. It may be a replay—a radio programme made available again online—or a native creation, produced specifically for podcasting rather than transferred from broadcast. That distinction matters as podcasts are studied, counted, promoted, and produced for increasingly varied audiences and communities: are they broadcast materials in a new channel, or a distinct sound form? These practices involve traditional radio, web radio, and private companies offering catalogues, or collections, through online portals [1]. Podcasts also encourage listening while mobile and attention to sound quality, making the shift from replay to creation a question of how voices are heard and how sound is experienced [1].
A useful seed for this distinction is Évelyne Cohen’s 2019 account, which describes podcasting as a movement from réécoute—literally, listening again—to création sonore, or sound created as a podcast rather than replayed from elsewhere [1]. The account keeps the field broad. Podcasting includes sound or visual programmes redistributed on the web, but also native sound creations: works made specifically for online circulation in podcast form [1]. It is not tied to a single kind of organization. Traditional radio, web radio (radio distributed online), and private companies all take part; the latter may offer catalogues, meaning collections of programmes, through online portals, or web services that gather and provide access to them [1].
What changes across this spectrum is therefore not simply the location of a programme. Cohen emphasizes listening practices as well as distribution. Podcasts encourage listening in mobility—listening while moving—and an attentiveness to sound quality [1]. They also privilege sound content and its sensitive perception: the felt, sensory experience of hearing [1]. In this framing, podcasting contributes to the development of a sound culture, understood here as greater attention to sound and its perception .