Book ID: CBB001320969

MP3: The Meaning of a Format (2012)

unapi

Sterne, Jonathan (Author)


Duke University Press


Publication Date: 2012
Physical Details: xv + 341 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

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."

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Reviewed By

Review Yates, JoAnne (2013) Review of "MP3: The Meaning of a Format". Business History Review (p. 564). unapi

Review Beekman, Scott (2013) Review of "MP3: The Meaning of a Format". Journal of American Culture (p. 384). unapi

Essay Review Bijsterveld, Karin (2014) Format Theory or Revitalizing Science and Technology Studies. Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 539-542). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320969/

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Authors & Contributors
Zagorski-Thomas, Simon
Horning, Susan Schmidt
Allan Moore
Sean Williams
Jan Fairley
Simon Frith
Concepts
Technology and music
Music
Sound reproduction
Sound
Sound studies
Sound Recording Industry
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
20th century, late
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