Digital Seriality and Narrative Branching: Season One, the Podcast Serial

This paper explores the characteristics of storytelling in a digital medium through Season One of the podcast Serial. We also analyse how Serial’s digital audience engages with and reacts to the narrative, and the ways in which such an audience influences the success and the reach of the show. We draw attention to how the cross-media format of Serial enables listeners to participate in the narrative, sharing their interpretations and reactions. We argue that storytelling to a digitally networked audience relies on both some very old and some new aesthetic narrative forms