European Union Explained for Dummies
“In this episode, we will ask a fundamental question: what is the EU? The short answer is ‘nobody knows’. The long answer is ‘nobody knows’ but in French” — this is how Sava Stoyanov, 23, starts his podcast series called “EU in 2” explaining in a clear and a humorous way what the European Union (EU) is, how it is structured and what it does through 21 episodes of podcast, each being two to four minutes long.
Stoyanov is a fourth-year student at American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) and Political Science. To complete his studies in JMC, he decided to produce something valuable by blending his interest in Politics with his skills in writing and digital audio production.
The content of the series is arranged in the same way as the EU has evolved over the years. The podcast starts with an explanation of what type of organization the EU is and the following episodes review the course of history, the structure of all its institutions, what it does in terms of single market, standards and regulations, foreign policy, education or culture. The last thing before the podcast wraps up is shedding light on common misconceptions. “There is one episode at the end about what the EU does not do and people think it does. For instance, the EU does not tax anyone. It does take portions of tax revenues from Member States but never from us. However, people do not know about it,” Stoyanov said.
A source of inspiration for him to make a crash course about the EU was watching short videos on world history and the United States government. “Initially, I wanted to create video series similar to those I have watched before but creating videos proved to be infeasible. So, I decided to execute my idea with a podcast,” said Stoyanov.
Producing the series was not something Stoyanov could do alone. He asked his professors, friends and audio professionals for help. Professor Roxana Mihaila, European Studies instructor, made sure that nothing important about the EU was missing in the information later folded into the podcast. Even though writing scripts was the most challenging part of the process for Stoyanov, it eventually got handled with the supervision of Professor Laura Kelly, who teaches JMC and mentors this project.
“The function of journalism is to explain and demystify institutions or concepts. Sava’s podcast about the EU does all of that. It succeeds translating the notions and the ways the EU works. If we can understand things, then we can react, respond, join and participate in such things,” said Kelly.
To manage recording his scripts in the university sound lab, Stoyanov asked a third-year student, Elsa Kelmendi, for an assistance. Kelmendi, who Stoyanov considers to be a co-producer of the series, helped him with recording the voice and advising what to add or pull out from the script. “Sava was reading in front of a microphone, while I was making sure the sound levels were consistent. I was also his first audience and critic. The podcast is engaging, easy to follow, witty and simply enjoyable to listen to,” Kelmendi said.
For now, all the episodes of “EU in 2” are up on YouTube. People interested in Politics, European Studies or educational podcasts can access them here. Stoyanov and his supervisor hope that the series will be deployed somewhere in the future because the intended audience is larger than the town where AUBG resides. “I did this podcast because there is nothing similar to this about the EU. It is for individuals of my age who do not have a big attention span. I do think that it serves its purpose and I really hope that a considerable amount of people will actually hear it,” said Stoyanov.