For my third paper, I’d like to focus on “Ways of Seeing” theme and specifically I’m interested in what ways , do photographers use pictures to tell stories about the struggle for civil rights in 50’s?

Describe your research strategy. What methods and ideas from the readings did you find most useful?

Identify and describe the research question you are using to develop your third paper. What is your question and how did you arrive at it? What interests you about it?

1. What do you take the differences between “hearing” and “listening” to be? Do we make choices about what we listen to? If so, how do we make these choices? What criteria do we use? Do structural features, such as race, gender, or social class, inform how we listen? How so? Are there other structural elements that affect our listening experiences?

There is a subtle difference between hearing and listening, even though some people use them as synonyms. One requires effort, while the other happens without our awareness. Listening and hearing go hand in hand when learning and communicating. Hearing is the perception of sound and does not require concentration whilst listening is the active understanding of the sounds you hear and concentration is required.

It’s impossible to stop hearing. Sound is fundamental to your existence, so you will hear them all day. Listening, however, is temporary because it requires attention and focus that cannot be provided every minute of the day. Therefore, listening becomes a psychological experience.

We cannot pick what we hear but we can choose what we listen to and yes structural features such as race or gender define who or what we listen to. This happens because in certain cultures such as Muslim the husband is the head of the household and the wife listens to her husband only because that is what is done in their culture but if another man has a say she won’t listen because her culture says otherwise. Also when it comes to politics or race if its election time and the democratic party is talking about a important topic the people of the republican party would probably hear the democrats’ speaking but would not listen to them because its not their party speaking and remember hearing isn’t a choice but listening is.

2.  How do Schafer and Krukowski discuss the relationship between sound and space?

Soundscapes are defined by Schafer as an acoustic field of study. He continues to state that “just as we can study features of any landscape, we can isolate the acoustic environment as a field of study as sound is not just defined as music, but as sound in a broad context. Our environment and our own voices create our soundscape e.g. the buses, trains, cabs, babies crying, people listening to music, buildings under construction. All of theses are examples of how we create our own soundscape. While Krukowski  expresses how he feels about sound today and how technology has changed how we hear and listen to each other, for instance when we are in the presence of others we would cancel out each other using our headphones so communication isn’t as thorough as it use to be, meaning that we no longer experience time together. He also states that you can hear the difference in sounds in an empty room vs a room full of people or if you place your mouth towards the mic your voice will sound like if your closer to audience whilst if you move your mouth away from the mic you can tell the difference. Sound is everywhere and we can choose to hear it or listen to it but also depends on why or how your doing so.

1. Hearing is passive, involuntary, and requires no effort. It is a physiological perception of sound that does not require centered attention. Listening is a voluntary and conscious process that allows us to react to and understand the sounds and conversations we hear. Anything interesting that we hear immediately captures our attention and sparks curiosity. Say we are having a one-on-one conversation with a certain someone significant to us, we effortlessly focus intently on what the person has to say, maintain excellent eye contact, and give them thoughtful and considerate opinions. It’s a personal choice to be selective on what we listen to. Many factors come into consideration – family values, cultural diversity, social connections and influences, political opinions, etc. Anything that we were raised to believe in and our social environment can influence our listening skills. Our willingness to listen can also increase our perception skills and allows us to gain more wisdom.
2. “The sense of hearing cannot be closed off at will. There are no earlids. When we go to sleep, our perception of sound is the last door to close, and it is also the first to open when we awaken.” Schafer quotes. This is especially true because our first reaction to any sound is through our sense of hearing before using our sense of seeing. Schafer states that sound comes from the daily hustle and bustle of life. Living in a city such as New York definitely impacts our everyday perception -sounds of cars and trains, heavy machinery, street music, loud chattering, birds chirping, etc.  The world has become so loud that we have to filter the noises and be able to distinguish if it’s something pleasant to listen to or if it’s just mere noise pollution. Both Schafer and Krukowski have written about sounds and how it plays a huge role in our daily lives. Human interactions are becoming increasingly inaccessible due to technology according to Krukowski. The human population has succumbed to relying on increasing technological developments. Is this a blessing or a curse? or both? We cannot deny that these two writers have valid points on how sound is essential for sharing information, interacting with others and countless other aspects of life.

1. I believe that when you are hearing its involuntary and not with much interest. It comes naturally because we cannot filter out sound when we are just hearing. Hearing is listening to things you care to hear for and things you don’t, for example background noise. This differs because when you are listening you are voluntarily putting thought behind your hearing. You listen because you care what sound is being made whether that be talking, a song you like, or background sounds. What you listen to is important to you in one way or another. Listening is selective and thoughtful while hearing is done without thought or want most times. We make choices about what we listen to, like when we listen to a song or in class we decide what to listen to and what parts to zone out during. Also like Krukowski said in Ways of Hearing Episode 2, the artist is composing but still has his window open and is listening to all the outside noises. You choose what you listen to by choosing what you are interested in or have thoughts about. Structural features do inform how we listen because we are trained to listen for different things. With different environments, like somebody from a loud city or a big family vs somebody from a rural area. People from New York zone out the noises while a person from a rural area listens for them. Gender is another example because for example, when a girl is walking alone or in the night she has to constantly be aware of her surroundings. A boy or man on the other hand is not as aware nor has to be.

2. Krukowski discusses that the relationship between sound and space is that they are both in rhythm with eachother. He explains that people in New York use to be in tune but now everybody is on their screens or in their own bubble so everybody is more laggy. Nobody is on the same beat and it is less social with less public sound. Schafer discusses that the relationship between sound is space is that sounds differ based on the space. He explains that depending on your location, sounds differ. For example, sounds in a forest are different from those of a school because of factors like geography and climate.

1. 1. The difference between hearing and listening to me is hearing you hear a sound/person talking but don’t comprehend the meaning of it but listening you try to understand what the sound is or the person who is talking is saying. I think we do make choices about what we listen to because we listen to what is relevant/ important. Criteria we use when hearing is using our ears but when listening we are using our brain. I think structural features, such as race, gender, or social class, inform how we listen because people have different opinions and won’t listen to others because they want to stick to their opinion. I think another structural element that affect our listening experience is our setting/surroundings because people can get distracted easily and loose focous when trying to listen.
   2. Schafer and Krukowski discuss the relationship between sound and space by talking to us about how sound is always around us. Sometimes we understand the meaning of it by listening and sometimes you just hear it.