Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Microphone

Microphone

Jones, Ralph
Bogost, Ian
Schaberg, Christopher

Paperback

Series: Object Lessons

PhilosophyLiterary CriticismTechnology & Engineering

Publisher Price: $14.95

ISBN13: 9798765126011
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: Apr 2 2026
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.50 Width: 5.55 Depth: 6.53
Language: English

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Since its invention more than 150 years ago, the microphone transformed the world in an instant. Yet its evolution and integration into our daily lives has been comparatively gradual - so gradual, crucially, that it is easy to forget just how much we take it for granted. Every phone has a microphone. Every laptop has a microphone. We are surrounded by microphones.

The microphone wields enormous power. But when we're 'on mic' we aren't just powerful, we're vulnerable. Microphones can destroy careers as quickly as make them. The microphone is inextricable from our need to be heard. This book takes a curious, always humorous look at this object as a metaphor for power and how the fulfillment of our desire to be heard has created a multi-headed beast we are still learning how to tame.

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