Shanghai conference explores role of podcasts in changing media environment

More than 500 podcast creators, listeners, scholars and members of public-interest organizations attended the 2025 Chinese Podcast Conference in Shanghai on Saturday.

Organized by Peking University's Social Media Research Center and the One-Way Street Foundation with the theme of Imagining Voices and Transcending Boundaries, the event explored how audio media can shape public dialogue and foster social innovation in an era of rapidly evolving communication technologies.

This year's conference featured two major sections, Reshaping Arena and Expanding Soundstage, with a range of panels covering topics from climate change and food security to youth development, urban culture and media-technology transformation.

Many participants emphasized that podcasts are becoming increasingly important in connecting personal stories with broader social issues, offering a slower, more intimate narrative form that resonates with contemporary audiences.

Public value also emerged as a central theme at the conference. Cheng Yanliang, host of Just Pod, said the rise of video-based and AI-generated formats reflects the rapid transformation of the media landscape. He added that the conference provided a rare, professional platform for creators to exchange ideas and understand both industry trends and the broader social significance of their work.

In a roundtable on Voices in Presence, scholars and creators — including historian Luo Xin, documentary filmmaker Zhou Yijun, and podcast hosts Zhang Zhiqi and Jia Mingyue — discussed how audio can reconnect personal experiences with public concerns as traditional news media evolve. The roundtable heard that podcasts can illuminate complex social issues by grounding them in individual stories.

In a creative-practice session, writer Xu Zhiyuan, professor Mao Jian, host Zhang Yue, legal scholar Chen Bi and artist Ge Yulu reflected on the challenge of sustaining authentic expression in a media environment saturated with noise. During the session, Xu announced that the One-Way Street Foundation is launching a new grant program to support emerging podcast creators and strengthen the cultural vitality of the medium.

For the first time, an academic track was introduced to the conference, with scholars from universities in Beijing, Hong Kong and Yunnan presenting new research on podcasts as windows into social emotions and public participation. Wang Xiuli, director of Peking University's Social Media Research Center, stressed the event's focus on "publicness", encouraging collaboration among creators, researchers and communities.

As technology and content forms continue to shift, the conference underscored the growing role of podcasts as a bridge between the personal and the public — expanding their influence in public discussion, knowledge sharing and cross-media storytelling.