In this project we are exploring the rhetorical potential of a new movement toward "social soundscaping" in which people are able to contribute, share, "prune," and listen to geo-located sounds in specific spaces. Geo-locating has to do with individuals being able to upload sounds, text, or images via an application or interface, and tag them to a specific location using their device’s gps. We are interested in how geo-locating sounds in sharable soundscapes gives us opportunities to rhetorically "speak back" to our spaces.
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Kati Fargo Ahern is Assistant Professor of English at Long Island University—Post campus. Her research is in sound studies, auditory rhetoric, and writing theory. Also, she spends her time managing her dog's online identity in a series of photos and captions tagged as #MelvinWatchesMovies. Melvin watches a lot of slasher movies and art films.
Jordan Frith is Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at the University of North Texas. He studies the Internet and mobile applications, but his passions are politics and dogs. He thinks the political process would be much better if it involved more dogs. You can follow his rather eclectic tweets about politics, dogs, and the Washington Redskins at @jhfrith.
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All sounds were created for this work or were licensed under Creative Commons with an attribution appearing at the end of the piece. All images used were published under a Creative Commons license; attributions appear at the end of this work. All print references are cited and listed in the order in which they appear.