Project description

As an AIAS Carlsberg Monograph Fellow my project is to write the monograph Reading with Ears and Writing with Voices. The aim of the book is to document, investigate, and discuss what I call an aural and oral turn in digital communication and media culture in the last decade. Born-written media like newspapers, books, letters, notes, e-mails, and text messages, are presently experiencing a surprising popularity in digital audio versions and offer a convenient and effective way to communicate in everyday life compared to encoding and decoding visual letters. Social and cultural implications following from ear-reading and voice-writing are critically discussed in relation to concepts like a ‘polyphonic public’ and a ‘resonant democracy’. The monograph is also an international consolidation of the research field of audio media in media- and communication studies.

Area of research

My area of research is interdisciplinary between sound studies, musicology, and media studies. I have published books and articles on topics such as mediated sound (music, voices, soundscapes, sound-design, etc), audio media (radio, digital audiobooks, podcasts, meditation apps, digital audio archives, etc.), books and audiovisual media (film, television, commercials, etc), digital reading (the digital reading condition, audio reading, etc) and phenomena such as ‘quietude’ and ‘the pause’. 

Short bio

I am associate professor at School of Communication and Culture, Department of Media and Journalism Studies, Aarhus University. I am co-founding editor in chief of the academic journal SoundEffects, and director of the PhD Program ICT, Media, Communication and Journalism. I am responsible for the section ‘Audio media and media sound’ in the online encyclopedia Lex.dk, and audiobook reviewer for the Danish Newspaper JyllandsPosten.