Podcasting's Impact on Social Design: Amplifying Voices for Positive Change

After four years of podcasting in Spanish and Portuguese, I made the decision to broaden our conversations by introducing English content. "Diseño y Diáspora" is my podcast dedicated to the realm of social design. Most episodes are in Spanish and it boasts an average of 6,000 monthly listens, making it the most widely heard design podcast in Latin America. With 450 published episodes, recurring topics include gender perspectives in design, design education, design research, design in cooperatives and the public sector, transition design, futures, and inclusive design, among others. The podcast serves as a reference for designers from various fields (textile, industrial, UX, graphic and service) committed to social action. It is a valuable resource for design researchers, students, and professionals across Latin American universities, providing inspiration and fostering a community of practice focused on socially-engaged design.

I am currently in the final stages of producing a series consisting of five episodes focused on Finnish design within the public sector. These episodes feature interviews with my colleagues from the Network of Designers working in the public sector in Finland. You can access all the English episodes here. 

The services associated with the podcast include:

• Updating a bibliography on social design with academic and artistic resources in various formats.
• Participating in international design conferences both formally and informally.
• Editing books.
• Establishing a network of design podcasters.
• Collaborating with researchers to create series and produce content for teaching.
• Producing independent events and educational experiments.
• Researching the use of podcasts in design education, including the writing of academic articles.
• Offering workshops on podcast use in education for teachers and as a tool in design and research.
• Developing and evaluating content through frequent dialogue with our audience on social media.
• Updating our website, where episodes are available.

The podcast is widely used as bibliographic material in design education in the Spanish-speaking world. It encompasses various formats, such as one-on-one interviews, live in-person panels, online panels, and short interviews with multiple individuals (4-8), often related to special situations like social crises or pandemic-related emergencies. There are 12 series and 90 thematic lists. Most series are produced in collaboration with expert researchers on the topic, while lists are curated based on recurring themes. Lists cover different countries, design areas (service, industrial, textile, graphic, UX), types of people (children/seniors), and emerging design topics (activism, feminism, politics, transbiotics, territories, transition, futures, etc.). There are also tags to help users search for specific topics and choose what is most useful to them.

Several books have been edited from interviews on the same topic, delving deeper into podcast themes and inviting other authors to participate, thus strengthening the network of collaborators. These books are published by Cooperativa Libertad, a project discussed in a podcast episode, which shares similar values. Books can be downloaded from here. They are all free to download and published under creative commons licenses. 

We will continue our work in designing for social change, ensuring that our resources are accessible to everyone.