Digital Media and New Aural Cultures Fall 2026

Most of the music I listen too doesn't come from the Top 50 or a playlist someone else built. I find my music from friends and SoundCloud. I listen to mostly ambient, indie, and underground music, and I like that SoundCloud lets me curate that for myself. Any user has the ability to upload their own track, so a lot of what I hear comes from artists who would never get played on the radio. Susan Douglas ends her book worried that listening is dying, because corporate radio categorized individuals into labels where " variety is kept outside the door " (Douglas, 1999, p. 348). She argues that the companies and agents orchestrating this " have now helped us see ourselves as members of mutually exclusive auditory niches " (Douglas, 1999, p. 349). Yet, she still hopes that " renegades " will keep real listening alive (Douglas, 1999, p. 357). Using my own experience, SoundCloud is where those renegades exist. There is some format, but much of the framework al...

When people talk about sad music, they usually say it puts them in a bad mood or makes them feel worse than they already do. I can understand why many people have this opinion, but I personally think sad music can actually be a good thing. I think it gives us the chance to connect with our emotions and deal with feelings that we might normally try to ignore.  Music is something that a lot of people turn to depending on how they are feeling. When we are happy, we usually listen to upbeat music, so I don't see why listening to sad music when we are upset should be any different. Sometimes, I listen to a song that relates to what I am going through at the time and it actually makes me feel better in the end. I think there is something comforting about hearing lyrics that describe exactly how you feel, especially when you don't really know how to explain those feelings yourself. I also think people sometimes confuse feeling sad with making themselves more upset. There is nothing wr...

PontyPool can be read as a metaphor for how words and ideas “infect” people, and McLuhan’s idea that “the medium is the message” suggests that how an idea reaches us shapes us as much as what the idea says. Speech is an especially powerful medium, and this is what makes the virus possible; it moves through spoken English the way a rumor or slogan spreads through a crowd, passed along by repetition and without reflection. Radio (and today, social media... more on that in a bit) amplifies this by carrying the same words to a whole community at once, a kind of “global village.” The film also takes place on Valentine’s Day, and the infected end up killing the people they love most before destroying themselves, which implies that when words stop carrying shared meaning, relationships fall apart.  This metaphor feels even more relevant today. Social media is the radio of our time, but faster and more personal, with algorithms that reward whatever grabs attention and keeps people scrolli...

I would say that in Pontypool, the language virus is an example of space bias because the information can travel across large distances through radio and telephone. For example, Grant uses the radio to communicate with people outside the station. This means that many people can hear his voice even when they are not in the same location as him.  Radios and telephones are contemporary forms of orality because they use technology to send spoken messages between people who are far apart, whether through a phone conversation or a broadcast to many listeners. For example, Ken Loney reports what is happening outside the station to Grant over the telephone. Grant then shares this information with listeners through the radio. The telephone allows spoken information to travel between two different locations, while the radio allows Grant's voice to reach many people at once. Electronic amplification, which is shown in the movie when Grant uses the loudspeakers to announce that Sydney Briar is...

What I thought was interesting about Pontypool is that language became dangerous through something that people use every day to communicate. The virus spreads through the understanding of spoken words, which targets normal conversations and media technologies. This fits in with Harold Innis’s theory of time- and space-biased media.  I would argue that the spread of the virus is mostly a case of space bias. Innis claims that, because electronic signals are a medium capable of transmitting information over space, they are well-suited to propagating information over large distances. In the film, spoken language is not limited to face-to-face conversations, but is carried through radio broadcasts and telephone calls. Speech is often thought of as time-biased communication, but these technologies change the extent to which it can travel and how fast. This is how the communication itself, regardless of the original intention of the message, is influenced by the medium. Radio, telephones ...

      I'm someone who genuinely can't go a day without listening to music, whether I'm cooking, showering, driving, studying, or walking to class, and I'd say country makes up about 80 or 90% of what I listen to. I discovered country music towards the end of Grade 10, and honestly, I kind of fell into it by accident. Before that, I mainly listened to pop, but over time I completely fell in love with country music and started expanding my taste beyond just the popular songs. Now, I have a 32 hour country playlist on Spotify that I listen to almost every single day. What I love most about the genre is it's storytelling and how there's almost always a song that perfectly captures whatever I'm feeling, whether that's happiness, sadness, excitement, or nostalgia. As someone who feels things deeply and appreciates the deeper meaning behind things, I find myself connecting more with songs that tell stories rather than just having a catchy, repetitive beat. Even...