IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 82

BOOK REVIEWS

(continued from page 13)

points out that Radio City, where
everything on stage was intended to
be miked, with extraneous echoes
absorbed into fabrics and special
plaster, embodies the modern (20th
century) reduction of noisy sound to
pure signal. As if they were tuning in
a station on the radio to listen to a
particular show, the audience heard
at Radio City just what they came to
hear, without reverberation and the
interference of noise.
Krukowski goes on to suggest
that earbuds are the contemporary
version of this phenomenon, a
direct shot of digital signal, or " an
auditorium without walls, " as he
puts it. Of course, this auditorium
has an audience of one, that listener who moves through the streets
to their own beat, often oblivious to
the actual noises of the city around
them - cars, sirens, birds, dogs,
voices. We all know the sight of the
headphone-clad pedestrian who,
lost in their own private sonic
space, always seems a step away
from crossing the street into
oncoming traffic. Headphones turn
our own skulls into echo chambers,

INTERVIEW

mechanical sound or voice disturbs
or interrupts or situates us in real
time. Experiencing this podcast on
the page allows us to " reclaim the
lost noise of the digital soundscape
and maintain [our] place in the
social networks that sustain us all. "
More than just an elegant justification for the appearance of Ways of
Hearing in book form, this also
serves to vindicate the distinctive
sonic and social value of the printed word, that tenacious throwback
of a medium that remains a way of
hear ing with and against the
sounds of our modern noisy world.

[10] F. Eczacibasi, " Disruptive Creativity
and Control Mechanisms, " 28 June 2018.
[Online]. Available: https://www.linkedin
.com/pulse/yikici-yaraticilik-ve-kontrol
-mekanizmalari-faruk-eczacibasi. [Accessed
14 May 2020].
[11] Citibank, " Bank X: The New New
Banks, " Citi GPS: Global Perspectives &
Solutions , March 2019.
[12] S. Achord, J. Chan, I. Collier, S. Nardani
and S. Rochemont, " A Cashless Society Benefits, Risks and Issues (Interim Paper), " Institute
and Faculty of Actuaries, November 2017.
[13] The Local (SE), " What you need to
know about Sweden's new cash law, "

5 January 2020. [Online]. Available: https://
www.thelocal.se/20200105/wha t-you
-need-to-know-about-swedens-new-cash-law
. [Accessed 14 May 2020].
[14] Sveriges Riksdag (Swedish Parliament),
" Obligation for credit institutions to provide cash services, " 28 November 2019.
[Online]. Available: https://www.riksdagen
.se/sv/dokument-lagar/arende/betankande/
skyldighet-for-kreditinstitut-att-tillhandahalla
_H701FiU29. [Accessed 14 May 2020].

Reviewer Information
John M. Picker teaches in the Comparative Media Studies program at
M.I.T. He is the author of Victorian
Soundscapes (Oxford University
Press) and many articles and book
chapters in the field of sound
studies, including, most recently,
" Soundscape(s): The Turning of the
Word " in The Routledge Companion to Sound Studies. He can be
reached at jpicker@mit.edu.

(continued from page 17)

[7] J. R. Macey and M. O'Hara, " The Law and
Economics of Best Execution, " J. Financial
Intermediation, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 188-223,
1997.
[8] S. F. Lek, " Security and Exchange Commission: Comment on Proposed Options
Market Linkage Plan by the American Stock
Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange,
Pacific Exchange, and the Philadelphia Stock
Exchange., " 28 April 2000. [Online]. Available: https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/j4-429/
lek1.htm. [Accessed 14 May 2020].
[9] R. Jackall, Moral Mazes: The World of
Corporate Managers, Oxford University
Press, 2009.

and for Krukowski, the metaphor of
the echo chamber, so dominant
these days in this landscape of fake
news and Trumpian propaganda,
sums up the self-absorption and
loss of collectivity that the earbud
facilitates.
Perhaps the most obvious question this book provokes is: why did
this need to be published at all? The
original podcast, after all, would
appear to be the perfect form for
the subject of audio in transition.
What more could a (silent) book
achieve? As it turns out, Ways of
Hearing anticipates this question
and provides an answer, courtesy
of Emily Thompson, in an " Interlude " in between the first and second of Krukowski's chapters. Here,
Thompson cleverly reflects on the
status of the text itself. Reading
the podcast, Thompson writes,
" resolve[s] the paradox produced
by " it because when we read it,
with our ears unplugged from the
earbuds through which the digitally-rendered version entered our
own heads, we allow ourselves to
be open to whatever natural or

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

∕

DECEMBER 2020

https://www.thelocal.se/20200105/what-you-need-to-know-about-swedens-new-cash-law https://www.thelocal.se/20200105/what-you-need-to-know-about-swedens-new-cash-law https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/yikici-yaraticilik-ve-kontrol-mekanizmalari-faruk-eczacibasi https://www.thelocal.se/20200105/what-you-need-to-know-about-swedens-new-cash-law https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/yikici-yaraticilik-ve-kontrol-mekanizmalari-faruk-eczacibasi https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/yikici-yaraticilik-ve-kontrol-mekanizmalari-faruk-eczacibasi https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/arende/betankande/skyldighet-for-kreditinstitut-att-tillhandahalla _H701FiU29 https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/arende/betankande/skyldighet-for-kreditinstitut-att-tillhandahalla _H701FiU29 https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/arende/betankande/skyldighet-for-kreditinstitut-att-tillhandahalla _H701FiU29 https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/j4-429/lek1.htm https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/arende/betankande/skyldighet-for-kreditinstitut-att-tillhandahalla _H701FiU29 https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/j4-429/lek1.htm

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020