When New Sounds Come. The Sociocultural Effects of City Soundscape Change Based on the Example of the Pandemic
When New Sounds Come. The Sociocultural Effects of City Soundscape Change Based on the Example of the Pandemic

Summary/Abstract: 2020 has been called the year of silence for a reason. Actions such as lockdowntaken by the majority of countries in the world aiming at preventing the spreadof SARS-CoV-2 virus influenced many different areas including surrounding ussoundscape. Devoid of noise and sounds associated with human activity sound-scape of cities attracted attention not only of researchers and sound ecologistsbut also people not professionally related to sound studies. Such a great interestin sound space was primarily due to the scale of the changes that affected it. Inorder to better understand the nature of these changes and the response tothem, I begin by presenting the state of the audiosphere before the pandemic,as well as the achievements in the field of acoustic ecology—a research direc-tion that emerged in response to the state of sound space at the time. Referringto the writings of acoustic ecology pioneer Raymond M. Schafer and the contin-uators of his thought I present the role of sound in the city and its impact onhumans. I also explain terms that have emerged from soundscape studiesthat make it easier to navigate the issues I am addressing. The knowledge pre-sented in this way provides a starting point for understanding the sound pan-demic situation, which I draw on the basis of a review of popular scienceliterature such as BBC Future , Scientific American and The Washington Post .Using them, I present the areas in which audible changes took place and thereactions to these changes. I also describe the educational action taken at thetime to explain the audible situation and to exploit its sonic potential. This over-view concludes with an attempt to outline the future of the urban soundscape,based on the opinions of the authors of the mentioned publications as well asmy own conclusions.

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