Kate Lacey, Listening Publics: The Politics and Experience of Listening in the Media Age

摘要

Listening has been overlooked. Immediately with that opening sentence, one of the major reasons for this is revealed. In the hierarchy of the human senses, seeing is regnant, with the auditory relegated to a position of less perceptual and cultural importance, or to a role that is regarded as ancillary to the visual. That at least has been the case in western societies over the past few centuries and more. The rule of the eye over the ear has become so entrenched that it extends even to the predominance of visual metaphors in common parlance. The verb 'overlook' is just one example. We now need to offset and redress the excessive attention that has been paid to sight, image, spectacle and the great kingdom of visuality and visual media more generally.