This American Life

"BEFORE THE NEXT ONE" THIS AMERICAN LIFE EP 659
Occasion: the bitch-ass time, motherfucking place, and perceived cultural fucking assumptions; the context that prompted the hell out of the writing. Writing sure as hell does not occur in a vacuum. All writers are influenced by the larger damn occasion: an environment of ideas and shit, attitudes, and emotions that swirl around a broad issue, whore. Then there is the immediate damn occasion: an event or situation that catches the writer’s attention and triggers some wack-ass response.

This American Life is a weekly public radio program and podcast that focuses on "entertaining journalism" that addresses current issues in society by telling stories of those who are impacted by the issues. This episode of This American Life was published on October 12, 2018, and it is available to audiences through podcast apps as well as through the website. This means that both the program and its message reach a wide audience; this impacts the occasion in that the message (gun control) can reach more than the local Chicago setting of the program's production. In fact, the website boasts that the program has "2.2 million listeners each week on over 500 public radio stations in the US., with another 2.5 million people downloading each episode as a podcast." In addition to the larger reach, the fact that the podcast can be downloaded or found on both Youtube and the website means that the podcast can be accessed well after its date of publication. Ignoring this, the original date of the publication is significant in that the episode was produced roughly one month before midterm elections–a politically ripe moment in society as citizens can take action on the issue of gun control, a topic of frequent debate. This is significant especially in states like Florida–the location of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting–where adult and student activists joined in a movement called March For Our Lives to encourage voters to register and fight for more gun control. By telling the story of teachers who experienced the Stoneman Douglas shooting, This American Life is sharing a story and a perspective of what can happen if citizens do not take action about the issue of gun violence in American society.