Heike Graf 136 perceived as producing an intellectually valuable program. And because I had access to these worlds and to these people and an editor-in-chief of a respected journal follows me on Twitter, then it comes to her attention. But many other podcasters and products from people who, like us, come from socially disadvantaged areas, from the lower class or from migrant working-class parents, who may make just good content, but they do not have this access as I do due to my education and my connections…” (Ohanwe in: Krone, 2020). 3.1.1 Relationship with the audience A driving force for continuing to produce episodes is their relationship with the audience. They encourage their lis- teners to actively contribute to the production by commenting, telling their own stories, etc. They also organize life events with invited subscribers. To promote the podcast and themselves, they are active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and fre- quently invite their listeners to donate and follow, highly rate and review the episodes as well as share them with friends in order to attract more reviews and subscribers. This finally re- sulted in an “overwhelming response”, according to the hosts, which helped them keep going. As Aburakia explains in an in- terview: “Sometimes we get 30 to 40 messages a day, really long messages with voice memos and from the heart. That was partly overwhelming…. If it hadn’t been for somuch feedback, wemight have stopped, I guess” (Eisenschink, 2021). In 2020, they had ca. 10 000 listeners per episode (Abendzeitung 14.10.2020). Nevertheless, responses do not only deal with approv- al, but also with disapproval. As Ohanwe notices: “We are always heavily criticized, but it actually shows that people have very high expectations of us. But it is also good to show our listeners: We are not doing justice to them! Nobody should think that we are perfect feminists or anti-racists” (Eisenschink 2021). As they argue, “We are normal people, we belong to you, and do mis- takes, too”. Ohanwe self-reflectively describes their own blind spot as follows:
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