No Dead Air! The iPod and the Culture of Mobile Listening

Abstract In this paper I investigate the manner in which Apple iPod users re‐inscribe their experiences of commuting through the use of music. I argue that the new technology of MP3 players gives users unprecedented power of control over their experience of time and space. They do so by managing their mood and orientation to space through the micro‐management of personalised music. The paper analyses iPod users’ management of daily urban experience through the use of empirical examples, locating the impulse to use mobile media such as the iPod in patterns of domestic media consumption. It draws upon a variety of urban and social theorists ranging from Sennett, Adorno and Lefebvre.

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