How Sources Use Research

The presentation of resources differed from print to audio. In Rebecca Onion’s “How Depression-Era Women Made Dresses Out of Chicken Feed,” she cites her sources by hyperlinking certain words or phrases to the study or source she gathered the information from that she presents in this article. It is easier in the digital media format for Onion to do so, as readers can quickly click on the link to either further understand the information presented, to learn more about the topic, or check the credibility of the author’s sources. She also often cites her source at the beginning of a sentence, whether it’s a hyperlink or directly addressing the name or organization she’s citing, which is helpful to readers so they have an inkling of what the rest of the sentence is going to be about. 

In “The Cost of Fast Fashion,” sources were cited sometimes, but most instances in which facts or statistics were presented, the hosts often used phrases like “There are studies to back this up” or “Research has…” without always citing what resources the hosts were specifically referencing. In many instances, the hosts dropped facts without citing where they were from. For instance, when discussing how many clothes end up in landfills, they said that in 2012 84% of unwanted clothes ended up in landfills. This is more acceptable for a podcast because people might not want to hear the name of an article or study thrown at them. There may also be a certain level of trust between avid listeners of the podcast to the studies cited by the hosts of the show, since they invest their time and attention to listening to these two women. The hosts methodology of presenting this research was often using personal anecdotes and then connecting research to those anecdotes. I personally found it interesting, as a novice to listening to podcasts, that sometimes the sources they referenced were themselves. There were two or three times in which the hosts talked about a topic related to the cost of fashion that they had talked about in a previous episode, such as donating clothes, and then they would encourage listeners to go check the podcast out to see what information they had to present about that particular subtopic.