Aural Expectations of Home: An Autoethnography of the Amazon Echo Smart Speaker

Stephen J. Neville

About this exposition

The paper conducts an autoethnographic case study of the Amazon Echo smart speaker to explore problems of acoustical privacy at home. A gap in surveillance research is addressed by treating smart speakers as private social media platforms that connect users to sound, devices, and home environments. The concept of aural expectations of home is developed which expresses how dwellers live with and through sound. The paper argues that problems of acoustical boundary control in the domestic sphere not only help understand the communicative and socially connective aspects of smart speakers, but also illuminate surveillance issues as one’s sonic habits at home are rendered as data under the purview of corporations.

type	research exposition
date	18/11/2021
published	26/11/2021
last modified	26/11/2021
status	published
share status	private
copyright	Neville
license	CC BY-NC-ND
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1426664/1426665
published in	Journal of Sonic Studies
portal issue	22. Issue 22

id	name	copyright	license
1426707	JSS Banner	JSS	All rights reserved
1434809	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1434810	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1434812	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1434814	Audio Recording 2_Noisy Train B	Neville	All rights reserved
1434825	JSS22_Neville_thumb nail	Neville	All rights reserved
1434827	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1434828	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1435082	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1436800	Audio Recording 1_Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1436802	Noisy Train A	Neville	All rights reserved
1436805	Noisy Train B	Neville	All rights reserved
1436807	Quiet Train	Neville	All rights reserved
1436809	Disruptive Party	Neville	All rights reserved
1436811	Threshold Spaces	Neville	All rights reserved
1436813	Morning Alarm	Neville	All rights reserved

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Aural Expectations of Home: An Autoethnography of the Amazon Echo Smart Speaker (2021)

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