By far the most successful podcast in Germany, NDRinfo's "Das Coronavirus Update" is a science podcast. The team around the two virologists Christian Drosten and Sandra Ciesek has proven the enormous potential of podcasts for science communication – because podcasts constitute a participatory medium with many degrees of freedom in terms of timing and content and can reach a potentially large audience.
In this talk, I will outline the reasons why more and more universities and institutes are starting to produce podcasts, but also where the opportunities and personal benefits of podcasting lie for individual researchers as well as for the society. We will look at what aspects should be considered when conceptualizing a communication strategy in the field of science podcasts. A central theme of the talk, which is frequently discussed both scientifically and in the podcast community, is that of gender differences with respect to producers. What reasons might there be that female and non-binary podcasters are significantly outnumbered? And how can we address this disparity? I will try to answer these questions by drawing on my own experience and exchanges with many other female podcasters.

Christiane Attig is a research assistant at the Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems at Lübeck University. Science communication is a passion of hers, which she pursues both in her professional as well as private sphere through hosting and conceptualizing science podcasts and by teaching science communication skills for the National Institute for Science Communication (NaWik).