I had no idea how to create a podcast, and I wasn’t even familiar with what a podcast was. To educate myself, I searched online to learn its definition and listened to podcasts using the Apple App and a post by my classmate, Heather Herbaugh-Abourezk. Through this exploration, I discovered that a podcast is an audio recording accompanied by background music.

The most crucial step in podcast production is establishing a theme, and fortunately, I had something on my mind that I wanted to express. Since January 27, when news about the “chained mother of eight” began circulating online, I became deeply invested in the story. I spent considerable time reading news articles, watching related videos, and engaging in discussions by leaving comments on posts. The four contradictory investigation reports issued by the local government further piqued my interest. The government sought to suppress this news and prohibited public discourse about it. In my social media platform, Xiaohongshu, I attempted to comment and write articles about the incident, but the media censored my remarks and eventually banned me from posting anything. These censorship measures and government control prompted me to contemplate China’s political system. Concurrently, the story of the unfortunate woman, who had once been a beautiful 12-year-old girl and had suffered rape, torture, and confinement, with her teeth knocked out and her tongue tip severed, filled me with anger, as it did many other Chinese individuals, especially those with daughters. This anger inspired me to reflect on the knowledge I had acquired in China, leading me to decide to discuss it in my first podcast.

With my podcast topic established, I needed to learn how to create it. I turned to YouTube videos for guidance and discovered that the first step was to download podcast creator software. I initially downloaded an app called Audio Editor, which was a music recording editor. I then obtained background music from a Chinese website, selecting a somber-sounding piece to match the tragic nature of my topic. However, I encountered difficulty in pasting the background music into the Audio Editor. I revisited some YouTube videos and downloaded another software called Audacity, which allowed me to successfully add the music and record my narration over it. Initially, the volume of my narration was too low, so I re-recorded it while adjusting the volume accordingly. Additionally, I realized that the background music was too long. Following a tutorial on YouTube, I learned how to trim it to the desired length.

After completing the editing process, I listened to the final product to ensure everything sounded good. I then saved it, which automatically converted the file into an MP3 format. Finally, I submitted the podcast to the assignment page and shared it on the discussion board.