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This innovative study opens up a new area in sociological and urban studies: the aural experience of the social, mediated through mobile technologies of communication. Whilst we live in a world dominated by visual epistemologies of urban experience, Michael Bull argues that it is not surprising that the Apple iPod, a sound based technology, is the first consumer cultural icon of the twenty-first century. This book, in using the example of the Apple iPod, investigates the way in which we use sound to construct key areas of our daily lives. The author argues that the Apple iPod acts as an urban

AbstractDuring the review and assessment of air quality process, South Norfolk Council identified that poultry rearing could be a significant source of particulate matter and therefore required more detailed study. Using standard emission data for poultry rearing dispersion modelling confirmed that there was potential for an exceedance of the UK objective for fine particulate matter (PM10). However, it was recognised that the emission data available were based on very limited information and further monitoring was required to investigate the issue fully. Accordingly, an air quality monitoring programme was set up to measure PM10 concentrations around a large broiler‐rearing facility. This used both a TEOM‐ and Partisol‐type instrument to allow direct comparison with the UK objective and to provide continuous results to use with wind direction monitoring to assist in identifying the source of particulate matter in the area. The results from the monitoring showed that an exceedance of the UK objective was unlikely, although the broiler sheds did appear to result in a significant increase in PM10 concentrations in the area, with average concentrations increasing by nearly 12 μg/m3 when the wind direction carried emissions from the sheds to the monitoring site. Given that the test site was located near a very large broiler farm, it was considered that it was unlikely that broiler‐rearing activities would result in an exceedance of the UK objective for PM10.

Through the analysis of Walkman use I propose a reevaluation of the significance of the auditory in everyday experience. I argue that the role of sound has been largely ignored in the literature on media and everyday life resulting in systematic distortions of the meanings attached to much everyday behaviour. Sound as opposed to vision becomes the site of investigation of everyday life in this article. In focusing thus, I draw upon a range of neglected texts in order to provide a dialectical account of auditory and technologically mediated experience that avoids reductive and dichotomous categories of explanation. I propose a new evaluation of the relational nature of auditory experience whereby users manage their cognition, interpersonal behaviour and social space. The Walkman is perceived as a tool whereby users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self.