I was recently interviewed about my tinnitus research for 3620, a podcast produced by the doctoral students of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Producer Kevin Gotkin and I discussed the neurophysiology of phantom head noise and the curious ways the condition has been represented and communicated online. It was a fun chat and Kevin produced a great piece. (MP3 link)

I recently wrote a short article for the sound studies blog Sounding Out, called "Listening to Tinnitus: Roles of Media When Hearing Breaks Down." It's a "wide net" piece that points to a number of opportunities for sound/media scholars and the tinnitus community to learn from one another. Tinnitus ("ringing in the ears") is a tricky problem space where media are variously seen as cause and cure. Media are also used to objectify and publicize this poorly understood and subjective condition. However, media advocacy and message boards can also exacerbate people's negative experience of their tinnitus--and potentially lead others to problematize their own previously benign or unnoticed tinnitus. Closer study of the relations between listening, discourse, and media is needed.

I'm thrilled to (belatedly) announce that a series I produced with my Indiana University students and community radio station WFHB won “Best Radio Use of Sound 2011-12” from the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists. It's worth noting that this was not a student award--this work won first place in an award designated for professional journalists! 

This Friday I'll be giving the lecture at the IU Department of Communication and Culture's Virginia Gunderson Colloquium. Each year, the graduate student deemed by the committee to have written the best paper of the preceding academic year gives the talk. I've been to the past three Gunderson Colloquia and they were fantastic, so I'm hoping to live up to that high standard. My talk will be based upon my paper, "Quiet Comfort: Noise, Otherness, and the Production of Personal Space." The talk will be this Friday, September 16th at 4p.m. in IU's Classroom Office Building, Room 100. Everyone is welcome!

Bloomington community radio station WFHB is currently producing three documentary audio pieces based on student research and reporting conducted in my summer class "Audio Production as Service: Sounds and Stories in the Path of I-69." Under the guidance of News Director January Jones and Executive Producer Matt Guschwan, WFHB producers are assembling three 8-minute pieces based on scripts, audio recordings, and fieldnotes produced by IU students. By interviewing rural residents and recording natural soundscapes, these students explored the human and environmental impacts of the proposed interstate extension through sound. Stay tuned for links to the finished pieces once they air...

If you or someone you know is an IU student with an interest in audio editing and production, I have an independent study available. Right now, twelve students and I are wrapping up C385 Audio Production as Service: Sounds and Stories in the Path of I-69, a summer session 1 course in which we did soundscape recordings and interviews at twelve sites in Monroe and Greene counties. Based on this fieldwork, students are writing scripts for short radio documentary pieces. Unfortunately, however, we won't have time to produce all four pieces. That's where the independent study comes in--working closely with the news staff at WFHB, the student will create finished radio pieces that will air on the station and appear online. If you're interested, contact me at whagoodi@indiana.edu. 

I recently submitted revisions for an article to appear in a special sound-related issue of American Quarterly, due out in the fall. In "QuietComfort: Noise, Otherness, and the Mobile Production of Personal Space,” I explore the use of noise-cancelling headphones as soundscaping devices that render a sense of personal space, particularly in the course of air travel. The airport and airplane, I argue, are spaces that reveal the contradictory nature of neoliberal capitalism, as everyone pursues his or her individualistic freedom at once, resulting in crowding and delays. Rather than confront the illusory nature of individualism and attend to the ways our lives and bodies are enmeshed with those of others, we often use sound media to tune out the "noise" of those around us. Looking closely at marketing and reviews for Bose QuietComfort headphones, I show how users and "noisemakers" are positioned in terms of differences such as class, gender, and race. Noise, I argue, is othered sound--sound that subjects refuse to integrate into themselves.