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Radiolab: The Obama Effect, Perhaps By Ellen Horne

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The podcast I listened to on RadioLab is called, “The Obama Effect, Perhaps,” produced by Ellen Horne, and it portrays a conversation between two speakers, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. From this particular podcast, I really liked how Abumrad and Kulwich explained the difference between the radio shows and podcasts, indicating that podcasts were “less formal” (Horne, 2009). Personally, I find it better that these podcasts are conversations because it keeps me engaged and the style makes it easier for me to understand the speakers’ perspectives. Furthermore, I liked how both speakers were very enthusiastic in order to keep the audience interested throughout the entire time. Most importantly, I appreciated the beginning of the podcast, which mentioned the difference between the radio shows and podcasts, because it was a clever way to dive into the actual topic (Horne, 2009). My attention was drawn when the actual topic of the “Obama Effect” was introduced and this happened when Abumrad referenced the second paragraph of an article in the New York Times newspaper (Horne, 2009). This article portrayed “new research” about the “Obama Effect” and based on the article, Abumrad states that “performance gap between African Americans and Whites on a 20 question test administered before Mr. Obama nomination all but disappeared after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election” (Horne, 2009). It is mentioned in the podcast that blacks scored “poorly” on these

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