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New Media & Society
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The World According to Sound

Investigating the World of Walkman Users

MICHAEL BULL

Sussex University

Through the analysis of Walkman use I propose a reevaluation of the significance of the auditory in everyday experience. I argue that the role of sound has been largely ignored in the literature on media and everyday life resulting in systematic distortions of the meanings attached to much everyday behaviour. Sound as opposed to vision becomes the site of investigation of everyday life in this article. In focusing thus, I draw upon a range of neglected texts in order to provide a dialectical account of auditory and technologically mediated experience that avoids reductive and dichotomous categories of explanation. I propose a new evaluation of the relational nature of auditory experience whereby users manage their cognition, interpersonal behaviour and social space. The Walkman is perceived as a tool whereby users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self.

Key Words: auditory • auditory mnemonic • being with • cognitive contingency • dialectic • everyday life • place • relational experience • space

New Media & Society, Vol. 3, No. 2, 179-197 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/14614440122226047
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