Between Sound and Text. Production, Content and Experiences of Multimodal Audio Literature

Audiobooks are transforming literature.

Following the audiobook’s increasing popularity, literary producers have recently begun to adapt and produce texts specifically for the audio format.

These works are multimodal texts which make use of the medial affordances of the format, combining verbal text with music, sound effects, and voice dramatization, thus challenging the boundaries of what we understand as literature.

The purpose of Between Sound and Text is to produce new knowledge about this emerging category of texts, which we call multimodal audio literature. The aim of the project is to understand how the audio format is transforming literature and literary culture.

To do so, we examine how the relation between sound and text shapes the aesthetic content of selected works as well as modes of production and experiences of literature. In existing research, these aspects are studied separately.

We study them as interrelated, applying an interdisciplinary approach that draws on methods and perspectives from publishing studies, literary studies, sound studies and media studies.

It is of critical importance that the project is conducted now, as audiobook production in Scandinavia is going through a phase of transition and innovation, offering a unique possibility to study the format as it develops.

The project thus offers a timely investigation into the relation between sound and text as it reshapes the production, the content and experiences of contemporary literature.