Power in Listening

How listening shapes power

Power in Listening explores how listening shapes – and is shaped by – power. From the politics of "sad girl" Spotify playlists to the sonic architectures of surveillance and the gendered voices of Siri and Alexa, this collection investigates how sound and listening inform identity, embodiment, and social life. How does Beyoncé's remix of her "elevator incident" expose the surveillance of Black bodies? How do deaf listeners use multiple senses to navigate sound? How are Latina voices racialized through ideas of volume and tone?

Building from the groundbreaking Sounding Out! blog, Power in Listening curates forty revised and expanded essays from scholars, artists, DJs, and activists across more than twenty disciplines. Together, they trace how auditory culture intersects with race, gender, sexuality, technology, and media – from radio and tape to streaming and AI.

Accessible yet rigorous, this reader reveals sound studies in motion: a field that listens as a form of inquiry, protest, and care. Each essay connects theory and everyday experience, offering tools to hear the world – and each other – more critically. Power in Listening invites readers to experience listening as a social practice, a political act, and a method of understanding one's place within a resonant and contested public sphere.