Mind the Narrative
An Exploration of Transit Audio
Welcome
About
About Text Audio
Mind the Narrative is a research project that considers the invisible infrastructure of transit audio and explores its role as an ideological apparatus in shaping spaces and audiences. We define transit audio as the pre-recorded announcements that articulate through a word-based language a message or messages to an assumed audience within the context of a tram or metro system. This definition prioritizes pre-recorded announcements over live announcements made by conductors, the messages over the tones or beeps, and tram and metro systems over train and bus systems. Our research asks “What is transit audio’s ideological impact?" and, more specifically, “How does transit audio construct space and audience?”
By combining transit audio messages from around the world into several short sound collages, we seek to raise new questions about how these banal elements in our urban environments create space and construct ideas of a public and individual self.
Listen
Sound collages created out of transit audio from around the world
Where Are You?
Who Are You?
Are You Cooperating?
Are You Aware?
Is Anybody There?
Explore
Transit audio spatially mapped
Explore Text Audio
This global sound map works as a catalogue of transit audio. Moreover it can be further developed by us or other researchers by adding new layers of information to it. As our project is looking at transit audio on a global scale, we decided to use an interactive mapping as a tool to geographically situate and embed the audio of public transport announcements with descriptions so that they are representative of the location while simultaneously offering the possibility to be compared to one another.
We used the open source platform Zeemaps where it is possible to directly embed audio files on a concrete location on the map. As this feature was not available on other platforms, we chose to work with Zeemaps.
As maps are “a device by which particular meanings can be imposed on the world; it orders priorities and naturalizes hierarchies of place. Because these factors all collaborate to act on its criteria and its discursive strategy, a map is both a practical and ideological document“ (Hadlaw 2003, 26), we want to highlight that this global sound map represents a catalogue which is incomplete in locations, audios, and descriptions. While there are options to draw immediate attention to categories such as gendered voices or multi-lingual announcements on the map surface, our ethnographic approach was to analyse transit audio as artefacts and present them in a neutral format.
Research
More about transit audio as an ideological apparatus
Research Text Audio
Overview
Mind the Narrative was born out of a combined interest in urban sounds as an example of invisible infrastructure. Inspired by Susan Star’s “call to study boring things”, we began with a phenomenological approach, tuning into the everyday “objects” that either lack a visible manifestation or are embedded in a non-visible way (Star 1999, 377). As Matthew Gandy points out, “sound itself can form part of the political dynamics of urban space,” and “the contemporary city increasingly resonates to a strange chorus of disembodied digital voices that seek to direct human behaviour” (Gandy 2014, 11–12). Because transit audio in particular is embedded into our everyday practices, it is important to “unearth the dramas inherent in system design” as Star suggests, and evaluate what part it is playing in the politics of our urban landscapes and to which types of behaviour it is directing us (Star 1999, 377).
The broader question we evaluated was “What is transit audio’s ideological impact?” The question gets its theoretical basis from Althusser’s discussion of ideological state apparatus to understand different ways in which transit audio is making people subjected to any ideology. The question also includes further exploration of the governing role of transit audio with the notions like inclusion/exclusion, expected behaviour and is it addressing individuals or masses. From the first question the other more specific question arises which is “How does transit audio construct space and audience?” With this question we are trying to expand and explore on Annabelle Mooney’s claim that “Just as visual signs …, spoken signs tell people what kind of space they are in and what kind of person they can be in that space.”
Theory
Our research group is interested in understanding the relationship between sound, space, and ideology. Early on, we drew our inspiration from Louis Althusser’s concepts of repressive and ideological state apparatus to consider how urban sounds act as an apparatus where ideas about self, other, and collective identity are reinforced (Althusser 1970). His theory of interpellation also gives us vocabulary for understanding what it means to “hail” an individual within a community. We also looked to Nathan Gabriel’s discussion of the “production of urban subjects” to explore urban audio as a potential actor of governance and considered urban audio as a mediator that has the potential to create an “imagined community” as discussed by Benedict Anderson (Gabriel 2014; Anderson 1983).
We have additionally gained much theoretical inspiration from figures in media studies and cultural studies: Marshall McLuhan’s claim that the “medium is the message” acts as stimulus for distinguishing auditory messaging from other media, while Michel Foucault’s explanations about discourse and its relationship to knowledge and power provides a basis for our exploration of the discursive formation of transit audio messaging. Finally, we were inspired by contemporary scholarship such as public transportation information design, methodologies for evaluating soundscapes through “soundwalking”, the design and effects of sonic ecologies, and the intersection between gender and power in public spaces through concepts such as “soft coercion”.
Methodology
To respond to our primary question, we conducted our research in two stages.
First, we created a database of transit audio clips from around the world. The database included the following categories: country, capital city, transport system (metro or tram), presence of audio recordings, language of transit recordings, private or public transit system, male or female-sounding voice, transcription of the forms of address, reference links, and additional information of note. Though a wider exploration of transit audio in all cities would be ideal, given our limited time frame (three weeks), we limited ourselves to explore the audio in capital cities. On some occasions, we searched beyond the capital city to mark prominent global cities (for example, New York City). Out of this database, we curated the audio files we found to create our global sound map on the platform Zeemaps. Since we could not visit the sites physically, our research was limited to online platforms—especially YouTube.
The second part of our research involved placing the audio clips from around the world in dialogue with one another by creating sound collages out of the clips. These collages re-contextualized the audio files in order to make direct comparisons and distinctions, showcase ideas raised by our theoretical research, and draw attention to particular terminology employed by the transit systems. Each of these compiled audio collages highlight one aspect linked to the claim, that spoken signs construct a public transport space as well as construct the people who move through it.