Sound Tactics
Auditory Power in Political Protests
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press
Published:20th May '25
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£23.99(9780271099385)
From call-and-response chants to the noise of pots and pans, protests are often defined by their sounds. In this book, Justin Eckstein argues that this is not merely the result of catchy slogans; it is due to sound’s ability to hold those in power accountable. Sound Tactics highlights how, in a world grappling with the uncertainty of emergent digital practices, social movements utilize the rhetorical power of sound.
Eckstein uses the waveform as a metaphor for the persuasive potential of sound. Examining the case studies of the March for Our Lives protest, Howard University’s #HUResist movement, and the Casseroles protest in Montreal, Eckstein demonstrates how changes to the immediacy, intensity, and immersiveness of sound can affect the power of an argument. The collective use of sound in these case studies conveys the unity of the protesters in their demand for change and underlines the strength of their argument to those in power.
More than just the written word spoken aloud, sound has unique layers of added meaning—it can convey length of time, demand attention, and signal disapproval. Eckstein’s study unpacks those layers for scholars and students as well as activists interested in deploying sound for change.
“Eckstein’s book is a rich examination of how sound can be used for change in the context of contemporary North American political protests. To this end, the book offers many lucrative concepts and generative discussion points for future scholarship and classroom conversations. The case studies are incredibly salient to contemporary North American issues and provide essential immediate histories for present-day conflicts such as gun control, university oversight, and control of public freedoms.”
—Cheyenne Zaremba Critical Studies in Media Communication
“Eckstein’s effort to write about sound–notoriously elusive and under-theorized–while evaluating its rhetorical and argumentative dimensions, is truly pioneering. His work is a much needed and highly original contribution to the study of multi modal rhetoric and argumentation. It opens up new theoretical and methodological possibilities for researchers across disciplines.”
—Gabrijela Kišiček Informal Logic
“A timely contribution that explores sound as resistance, this text offers theoretical insight into how sound operates as a text in social movements and how radicalized subjects have used and continue to use sound to hold power accountable.”
—Raisa Fernanda Alvarado Communication and Race
“Sound Tactics is an innovative and inspiring book. If argument scholars wish to understand (and teach our students) the functions and dynamics of argument in our highly complex and mediated world, we need to account for argument in its many modes. Sound is a modality that has received insufficient scholarly attention. Sound Tactics offers us a compelling path forward.”
—Robert Asen Argumentation
“Sound Tactics is a must-read for those interested in a better understanding of sound’s rhetorical power—and especially how sonic means aid social movements.”
—Sounding Out!
“Sound Tactics is a sophisticated, sonic account of kairos in contemporary social movements—in our streets and on our screens, through chants and screams and silences, and using voices and megaphones and amplified speakers.”
—Joshua Gunn, author of Political Perversion: Rhetorical Aberration in the Time of Trumpeteering
ISBN: 9780271099378
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm
Weight: 399g
190 pages