Introduction

Abstract

Think for a moment of your favourite sounds. Perhaps they include the sound of water in a brook or a fast flowing river, waves lapping on a beach, a dawn chorus of birdsong, the chatter of young children playing, or the hubbub in a busy restaurant. Sounds like these will have their own associations for you. Some sounds may have quite general associations while others may be linked to particular places, people or events. For example, I always associate the call of seagulls with holidays because that is when I have typically spent most time by the sea. On the other hand, the sound of rain on a window is now a distinctive sound of our current house where we have a conservatory with a glass roof. Your own house probably has its own distinctive sounds that will change with the passing of the days, nights and seasons. The meanings of certain sounds also change according to the context in which they are heard. To most children the sound of the school bell in the morning will feel very different to its sound at the end of the day. Similarly, the roar of a football crowd after the scoring of a goal will have very different associations depending on whether it was your team that scored.

“Once invented and used, media affect us by shaping the type of interactions that take place through them. We cannot play certain roles unless the stages for those roles exist” (Meyrowitz1986, p329).