Podcast Outcasts: Understanding Rumble's Podcast Dynamics

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 13,000 podcasts from YouTube and Rumble to compare their political biases, content strategies, and visual elements, revealing a pronounced right-wing orientation in Rumble's podcasts.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of political biases and content strategies in podcasts across two major platforms using advanced NLP and contrastive learning techniques.

Findings

Rumble's podcasts show a strong right-wing bias

YouTube hosts more diverse and apolitical content

Visual elements differ significantly between platforms

Abstract

Podcasting on Rumble, an alternative video-sharing platform, attracts controversial figures known for spreading divisive and often misleading content, which sharply contrasts with YouTube's more regulated environment. Motivated by the growing impact of podcasts on political discourse, as seen with figures like Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate, this paper explores the political biases and content strategies used by these platforms. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of over 13K podcast videos from both YouTube and Rumble, focusing on their political content and the dynamics of their audiences. Using advanced speech-to-text transcription, topic modeling, and contrastive learning techniques, we explore three critical aspects: the presence of political bias in podcast channels, the nature of content that drives podcast views, and the usage of visual elements in these podcasts. Our findings reveal a distinct right-wing orientation in Rumble's podcasts, contrasting with YouTube's more diverse and apolitical content.