Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
New Media & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sterne, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The mp3 as cultural artifact

Jonathan Sterne

McGill University, Canada

The mp3 lies at the center of important debates around intellectual property and file-sharing, but it is also a cultural artifact in its own right. This article examines the design of the mp3 from both industrial and psychoacoustic perspectives to explain better why mp3s are so easy to exchange and the auditory dimensions of that process of exchange. As a container technology for recorded sound, the mp3 shows that the quality of ‘portability’ is central to the history of auditory representation. As a psychoacoustic technology that literally plays its listeners, the mp3 shows that digital audio culture works according to logics somewhat distinct from digital visual culture.

Key Words: digital audio • digital format • file-sharing • listening • mp3 • psychoacoustics • sound • sound recording • technology and culture • visual culture

New Media & Society, Vol. 8, No. 5, 825-842 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1461444806067737
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Active Learning in Higher EducationHome page
C. Dale and J. M. Pymm
Podagogy: The iPod as a learning technology
Active Learning in Higher Education, March 1, 2009; 10(1): 84 - 96.
[Abstract] [PDF]