Dear all,

first of all: thank you Richard for the initiative - such a list was really missing and I hope we will have some lively debates here :) 
As some of you might know, last year I started to collect podcast related research literature in a GoogleDoc and if you have things to add, please feel free to do so (via comment):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PCqveZwFSexeMshI1rxBW6VbpCrC_VyJddyTwLif0R4/edit?usp=sharing

Some words to introduce myself: I am an independent researcher from Hamburg (Germany), and my work comprises, for instance, talks and workshops for public service broadcasters such as Deutschlandradio, on issues like podcasting, online radio or audience participation via social media. I guess I am one of the few German scholars in media and communication studies that are interested in Podcasts as a research object. But thanks to the current "hype" there are some bachelor/master/diploma theses under way, and I will try to give some insight on the research, which is done here in Germany.

In my own research I am looking at the social and technological conditions of media participation in the digital age, and the podcasting community in German speaking countries in particular. 
My dissertation project (which is currently unfunded, so I had to pause my research activities for a while) is an ethnographic study, and I am deep-diving into the field for three years now. The podcasting community in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is very dynamic and diverse, but also rather male-dominated (unfortunately, we barely have any current data about podcast production and listenership in these countries).  
In 2014, I started a list of women hosted German language podcasts out of curiosity, which now comprises about 225 formats and offers a very interesting (and rather overlooked) field of research. Hence, I decided to focus on female podcasters and I will be doing an interview study on the role of social and technological dimensions of their podcasting practices (e.g. publication tools, community work, financing, motivations), but also potential participation barriers, which might explain the digital production gap in independent audio podcasting.  If you have any ideas or literature on the question of gender-related aspects in podcasting (and/or digital media participation in general), please let me know :) 

So much for now. I am really looking forward to sharing thoughts here with you and to meet new podcasting people.
All the best from Hamburg,

Nele