Cinema in the Age of Globalization

Dominique Russell argues that film music currently exists within a changing “soundscape,” whereby “there has been a change in our sound envi- ronment through the proliferation of ‘private sound bubbles, ’ created through compact music players. Headphone technology creates private soundtracks to common images.... Insulated from room tone and ambient noises, two head- phone wearers become spectators to two very different scenes, depending on what they are listening to.”1 1 Students have become accustomed to recontextu- alizing visual phenomenon by selecting alternative auditory cues to experience privately via iPods, mp3 players and other such devices. As Russell suggests, when the spectator changes the soundtrack that accompanies visual stimulus, the very...