MP3: The Meaning of a Format

Jonathan Sterne

ISBN 10: 0822352877 / ISBN 13: 9780822352877

Published by Duke University Press, 2012

About this Item

Demonstrates that formats, standards, and infrastructures are every bit as central to communication as the boxes we call "media" Series: Sign, Storage, Transmission. Num Pages: 360 pages, 31 photographs, 5 tables. BIC Classification: AVX; TJK; TTA. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 236 x 156 x 21. Weight in Grams: 520. . 2012. 0th Edition. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780822352877

Bibliographic Details

• Title: MP3: The Meaning of a Format
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822352877
• ISBN 13: 9780822352877
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

MP3: The Meaning of a Format recounts the hundred-year history of the world's most common format for recorded audio. Understanding the historical meaning of the MP3 format entails rethinking the place of digital technologies in the larger universe of twentieth-century communication history, from hearing research conducted by the telephone industry in the 1910s, through the mid-century development of perceptual coding (the technology underlying the MP3), to the format's promiscuous social life since the mid 1990s.

MP3s are products of compression, a process that removes sounds unlikely to be heard from recordings. Although media history is often characterized as a progression toward greater definition, fidelity, and truthfulness, MP3: The Meaning of a Format illuminates the crucial role of compression in the development of modern media and sound culture. Taking the history of compression as his point of departure, Jonathan Sterne investigates the relationships among sound, silence, sense, and noise; the commodity status of recorded sound and the economic role of piracy; and the importance of standards in the governance of our emerging media culture. He demonstrates that formats, standards, and infrastructures—and the need for content to fit inside them—are every bit as central to communication as the boxes we call "media."

About the Author

Jonathan Sterne teaches in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, and the History and Philosophy of Science Program at McGill University. He is the author of the award-winning book The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, also published by Duke University Press, and the editor of The Sound Studies Reader. Sterne has written for Tape Op, Punk Planet, Bad Subjects, and other alternative press venues. He also makes music and other audio works. Visit his website at http://sterneworks.org.