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Description

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.

Accessibility Information

Additional accessibility information

  • PDF/UA-2, 1.4
  • accessibility@bloomsbury.com

Hazards

The publication contains no hazards

Support for non-visual reading

Has alternative text descriptions for images

Navigation

  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order

Table of Contents

1. Is This Thing On?
2. Testing, Testing
3. Hear Some Evil
4. You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet
5. Politics and War
6. So, This Isn't Really a Question...
7. Everyone Has a Podcast

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 02 Apr 2026
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Pages 152
ISBN 9798765126035
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 7 bw illus
Series Object Lessons
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Ralph Jones

Ralph Jones is a freelance writer based in the UK…

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