Sound moves: iPod culture and urban experience

This innovative study opens up a new area in sociological and urban studies: the aural experience of the social, mediated through mobile technologies of communication. Whilst we live in a world dominated by visual epistemologies of urban experience, Michael Bull argues that it is not surprising that the Apple iPod, a sound based technology, is the first consumer cultural icon of the twenty-first century. This book, in using the example of the Apple iPod, investigates the way in which we use sound to construct key areas of our daily lives. The author argues that the Apple iPod acts as an urban

Sound moves, iPod culture and urban experience : an introduction -- Sound epistemologies : strategies and technologies -- Sounding out cosmopolitanism : iPod culture and recognition -- The audio-visual iPod : aesthetics and the city -- Interpersonal sound strategies and iPod culture -- Mobilization of the social : mobile phones and iPods -- Contextualizing the senses : the auditory world of automobility -- The auditory privatisation of the workplace -- Bergson's iPod? : the cognitive managagement of everyday life -- The nostalgia of iPod culture -- Sound timings and iPod culture -- Endnote : sound mediations