In this comprehensive book, the author presents his vision of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of sound and society - ‘acoustic communication'. This approach seeks to understand the complex and continually shifting relationships between sound and society, it investigates sound phenomena from a human perspective attempting to understand the interlocking behaviour of sound, the listener, and the environment as a system of relationships, not as isolated entities. The book includes a discography of electroacoustic works that are mentioned in chapter 13, and a CD ROM that contains the author's Handbook for Acoustic Ecology.

Table of contents:

Part I: Sound, Listening, and Soundscape

1. Acoustic Tradition and the Communicational Approach: Energy Transfer and Information Processing
2. The Listener
3. Voice and Soundmaking
4. Systems of Acoustic Communications: Speech, Music, and Soundscape
5. The Acoustic Community
6. Noise and the Urban Soundscape
7. Acoustic Design

Part II: Electroacoustics - The Impact of Technology on Acoustic Communication

8. Electroacoustic Communication: Breaking Constraints
9. Electrification: The New Soundscape
10. The Listener as Consumer
11. The Electroacoustic Media: Audio Mediation
12. The Acoustic Community as Market
13. Regaining Control: Electroacoustic Alternatives
14. Electroacoustic Design