{"id":1086,"date":"2003-07-28T22:20:34","date_gmt":"2003-07-29T02:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2003\/07\/28\/christopher-lydon-the-nature-of-sound\/"},"modified":"2003-07-28T22:20:34","modified_gmt":"2003-07-29T02:20:34","slug":"christopher-lydon-the-nature-of-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2003\/07\/28\/christopher-lydon-the-nature-of-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Lydon: The Nature of Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Can sound be usefully incorporated into the blogging format? That is the question
\n being explored by Christopher Lydon, eminent radio personality, in his blog,
\n appropriately called Christopher
\n Lydon<\/a>. The blog consists largely of annotated
\n streaming oral interviews with such blogging luminaries as David
\n Sifry<\/a> (most
\n recently), Doc
\n Searls<\/a>, David
\n Weinberger<\/a>, Eugene
\n Volokh<\/a> and Dave
\n Winer<\/a>. The interviews
\n last from a few minutes to over an hour, play right in your browser window, and
\n even allow you to surf or work with the interview playing in the background.<\/p>\n

In content and spirit the interviews are true to the spirit of the blogosphere;
\n iconoclastic, bottom-up and community-driven. Lydon has a knack for putting
\n his subjects at ease and quickly getting to the heart of the matter at
\n hand.<\/p>\n

However, questions remain as to the ability of the audio medium to integrate
\n into the multi-threaded informational pastiche that typifies blogger-consciousness.
\n Certainly the human voice, as Chris points out, can carry mood and message
\n over and above that conveyed by the written word. This is great for Chris,
\n whose mellifluous,
\n resonant tones convey a comfortable intimacy. However, not all of us are
\n similarly blessed, and blog radio might not work out so well for the stutterers,
\n the squeaky-voiced
\n or the simply nervous.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more fundamentally, the underlying nature of and differences between
\n oral and written communication may play a role. These two superficially similar
\n uses
\n of language involve significant differences in cognitive processing. When
\n we participate in a conversation or listen to an interview, our attention
\n is focused
\n on the flow of ideas being communicated. We are forced to follow the train
\n of thought in a more or less linear manner, determined by the pace and direction
\n of the speakers. Although interesting comments, ideas and connections may
\n flash
\n through our minds, unless we take careful notes or have an exceptional memory,
\n they usually fade away unexplored.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, when we are reading we can stop to savor an idiomatic
\n gem, marvel at a lyric construction, note and develop those spontaneous connections
\n that fill intellectual life with creativity and wonderment. Sometimes I will
\n spend an hour rereading and ruminating over a single paragraph; at others
\n I may
\n skim an entire book in the same time period. The speed and depth of my reading
\n are mine to control.<\/p>\n

IMHO, the most significant aspect of hypertext, the seed from which the internet
\n and blogosphere sprang, is the way it can multiply and expand on the reading
\n paradigm, introducing seemingly natural but heretofore unexplored forms of
\n intuitive cognitive information processing like multi-threading and multi-jumping
\n from
\n idea to idea, author to author, page to page. Innovations like mixed RSS
\n news feeds and skills like managing multiple windows have all evolved to
\n feed this
\n newly discovered human need to multi-task. The blog universe is the current
\n cutting edge of this evolution in cognitive networking, and it is decidedly
\n non-linear.<\/p>\n

So how to integrate an information-rich but intrinsically linear data format
\n (audio interviews) into this cut-and-paste, mix-and-match, outta here and
\n on to something else media frontier? Perhaps oral records will constitute
\n an essential
\n archival resource, documenting the oral history of the information age. Perhaps they will become the digital background soundtrack to web-based activity. Perhaps
\n enterprising but unscrupulous entrepreneurs will convert weighty interviews
\n into convenient sound-bytes (hope not) for easier marketing and commercial gain. But check out
\n Christopher
\nLydon’s blog<\/a> and see for yourself. It’s worth a listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can sound be usefully incorporated into the blogging format? That is the question being explored by Christopher Lydon, eminent radio personality, in his blog, appropriately called Christopher Lydon. The blog consists largely of annotated streaming oral interviews with such blogging … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}