| Sumario: | This article uses the case of podcasting to think through how elements and features like ratings, charts and other discovery mechanisms are at once part of the industrialization process and an arena where competing ideas about the industrialization of an emerging format play out. By looking at the twin problems of discoverability and measurability, I argue that ratings and reviews on platforms like Apple Podcasts are one of several means that podcasters, scammers, marketers, and users employ to engineer the discoverability of audio content. I introduce the concept of 'infrastructures of discovery' – the features, mechanisms, interfaces and pathways that serve to prepare, present and make cultural content searchable and legible – in the hope of exploring how rankings, ratings and other such mechanisms promote a particular view of industrialization and that emphasizes discoverability at the expense of other modes of cultural production. Given the prominent role platforms like Apple and Spotify now play as discovery hubs, the case of podcasting highlights how platformization is increasingly becoming the default method of distribution and how the need to be discoverable on these platforms raises technical and cultural challenges that ultimately affect podcasters and the content they create.
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