The changing face of folkloric transmission: bigfoot and the American psyche

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to better articulate the role that podcasts play in the transmission of oral narratives within the world of modern folklore. The use of podcasting as a medium for folkloric transmission will be examined through the lens of the bigfoot stories in North America. The research will be primarily comprised of two separate studies. The first is an examination of the bigfoot stories found in North America beginning with the traditional narratives of the Native Americans and First Nations people, which shed light on the building blocks of the bigfoot archetype, and follow the stories as the become the modern narrative that we hear today. The second study is an examination of the role that podcasts play within our culture in relation to the dissemination of information on a mass scale. These analyses are followed by an assessment of how podcasting has become a popular medium for oral storytelling, and how this medium has facilitated the expansion of the bigfoot folklore. The research found that podcasts, combined with other social media platforms, have created digital folklore collections that may help push interdisciplinary research within the scientific community. The methodologies used for the research are a combination of textual literature, digital literature, and audio files (podcasts).