I think that creating the audio essay and podcast each had its own challenges and qualities to it that differentiated the two mediums. Obviously, the audio essay is much shorter than the podcast, so when creating the audio essay, I definitely felt like it was more important to choose exactly what pieces of information I wanted to convey at each point of the audio essay (hence the script). With the podcast, since it has a length of around 15 minutes, there was no script needed and it was much more off the cuff.

The audio essay was nicely focused and carried a much more formal tone, while the podcast varied a bit more in content (which is a good thing because it allowed for an easy going, conversational discussion) and was certainly less formal. I feel like the audio essay required a bit more of a research focus, while the podcast used research as a springboard for discussion, and because of this, the podcast kind of requires you to be more creative on the spot with your responses - you kind of take more a risk with your words because they are not calculated as much.