Sonic Havens: Towards a Goffmanesque Account of Homely Listening

Framing Atmospheres: Goffman, Space, and Music in Everyday Life

“…We are referring to the strategies of “removal” (which either “physically or symbolically relocat[e] actors in places that are more conducive to wellbeing”) and “refurnishing” (which involves recreating “environments in ways that…make them more habitable”) (DeNora 2013:49–50). DeNora (2013:63; see also de la Fuente and Walsh 2013) suggests that one of the key ways in which aesthetic or material environments can serve to remove or refurnish individual or collective space is through the way that music “and sound can change the relationship between public and private experience, and they can change the locations for this experience.” As we have suggested elsewhere, music can furnish a sense of “homeliness” and associated emotional states (comfort, security, a sense of warmth, and so on) whether the listener is actually in their home or outside it (Walsh and de la Fuente 2019).…”

The sonic framing of place: Microsociology, urban atmospheres and quiet hour shopping

“…In our own recent work, we have attempted to show that framing through sound is performed via everyday rituals and practices, be it in the home, the workplace, the automobile or the train carriage (Walsh, 2009, 2010, 2013; Walsh and de la Fuente, 2020; de la Fuente and Walsh, 2021). One of the ways sound does this is through managing what Goffman (1963) terms ‘involvement’ and ‘disinvolvement’ in situations.…”

‘I’m also slightly conscious of how much I’m listening to something’: Music streaming and the transformation of music listening

“…What is critical is that by segregating interactions and social information into different regions, these processes work as ‘psycho-social shock absorbers’ (Meyrowitz, 1986: 41) ensuring interruptions are reduced that have the potential to drain energies of people while avoiding ambiguous definitions of a situation (Loh and Walsh, 2021; Marwick and Boyd, 2014). Crucially music can help listeners manage regions and frame social activity (Bull 2007; de la Fuente and Walsh, 2021; DeNora, 2013; Walsh and de la Fuente, 2020). However, as I argue in the following, the affordances of music streaming also can contribute to an unravelling or collapsing of experience typically demarcated between front and back regions which loosely aligns in some ways with notions of ‘public’ and ‘private’ social life (Bovill and Livingstone, 2001; Kumar and Makarova, 2008; Meyrowitz, 1986; Walsh and Baker, 2017; Zerubavel, 1979).…”