Sonic Persuasion

Abstract
According
to Greg Goodale, sound is never ‘innocent’: there is always an underlying
message or intention behind its propagation. In his book Sonic Persuasion,
Goodale looks at a variety of aural pieces by examining the technicalities
involved, as well as the backend manipulations orchestrated by corporations, advertisers
and politicians etc. He believes that ‘to read sound, that is, to listen,
instead of just to hear sounds’. Using Abraham Lincoln’s legendary baritone, the
author moves on to illustrate the use of vocal qualities to construct images
and create association, such as masculinity in this case. Also, Goodale points
out that recordings are racial by nature, mainly because of the accents
involved. That being said, the book emphasizes on how sound is used to persuade
and make believe such as through vocal tricks – like rhythmic alterations, pronunciation
and intonation etc. Sounds like raid sirens and falling bombs were used by
political actors during the Cold War era to garner support for nuclear weapons.
Goodale next introduces the concept of a sonorous envelop, which includes
random sounds from our surroundings that can be used to create an aura of
familiarity and comfort by people. Sonic Persuasion’s attentive examination of
speech and close scrutiny of the political rhetoric involved in recordings shed
light on the usage and role of sonic properties in recent history.
Key Concepts
1.   
Goodale’s
thesis branches further into three categories, namely identity construction,
maintenance of the self and sonic manipulation. 
2.   
Identities
such as race, social and cultural backgrounds can be artificially created
through the use of accents, dialects, timbre and other sonic markers.
3.   
Maintenance
of the self is related to the use of sonorous envelopes – all sorts of ambient
sounds that we can relate and identify ourselves with. It can in the words of
the author, ‘‘prevent ideologies from forming or can buttress the formation of
ideologies’’.
4.   
Sonic
manipulation is most evident in politics and is widely used to advance propaganda
messages to persuade or garner support from political constituents.
Examples
1. The
famous Gettysburg Speech by Abraham Lincoln is almost synonymousn with
masculinity and authority: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3P8VgxcL4E
2. Amos ‘n’
Andy, a TV show in which actors emphasized on the use of accents to depict the
life of two African Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5MwDkvg4Y&spfreload=10
3. The famous
(or infamous) ‘Daisy Ad’ by the Lyndon Johnson administration used sonic
devices as such the voice of a man counting down and the sound of a bomb
exploding to advance political messages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k&spfreload=10
Keywords
Aurality, Speech, Rhetoric, Sonic Persuasion, Social identity
Citations
1.    Goodale, Greg, Sonic Persuasion: Reading Sound in the
Recorded Age, University of Illinois Press, 2011