Page 83 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

participatory and group activity, whereas reading is a solitary experience conducted in silence. When someone listens to an audiobook they feel they are not alone – they are immersed in the story because the narrator addresses them using all the nuances of his or her voice. But people can also arrange to listen in a group, and this helps improve reading comprehension, develop oral language and combat loneliness. This is what Lang and Brooks (2015) found in a study conducted with elderly people with impaired sight who listened to audiobooks in group ses- sions. They concluded that this experience not only stimulated reading as an important pastime in their lives but also reduced the social isolation associated with loss of vision. A study carried out by the Royal National Institute of Blind People30 (RNIB) in Britain concluded that 80% of over-65s with loss of sight carried on “reading” audio- books subsequently. Naturally, the institution uses sound as the main means of transmitting
its initiatives – its radio station, podcasts and free Talking Books. Not only elderly people enjoy listening to audiobooks; so do youngsters. Beers (1998) states that children prefer them to reading as they make them feel more relaxed and enter- tained. Lesesne (2009) stresses that audiobooks, used jointly with printed text, help improve schoolchildren’s reading comprehension and fluency, in keeping with the findings of Riding and Burt (1982).
Therefore, like sound in general, audiobooks hold a number of advantages which listeners describe and which were confirmed by a study where
the subjects were instructed to read and listen to two stories (Rodero, 2017). These advantages were: a sensation of greater identification and connection with the characters due to hearing their voices and how they speak; greater emotional engagement measured by recording physiological activity; greater creation of mental images; and greater involvement. These results are consonant with the findings of Rubery’s survey (2011) on audiobooks: “I like it because
it sounds realistic”, “I like it because it sounded credible”, “It was exciting”.
Although audiobooks were initially associated with children and blind, illiterate or dyslexic people, nowadays they appeal to many other groups, who are addicted to them (El País,31 2017). The Danish town of Padborg32 has started up an initiative whereby lorry drivers can collect free audiobooks to listen to during their journeys (Have and Pedersen, 2013). As a complement to audiobooks, the literary world can be enriched by listening to podcasts on literature. It is impos- sible to list them all here, but they are easy to find on the major platforms.
In a world where there is increasingly less time, interacting with digital devices through the voice continues to be the fastest and simplest way.
Conclusions
Orality is as old as mankind itself. We are designed to speak and therefore oral forms
of transmission have always had the greatest influence. The importance of oral language throughout history is due to its simplicity, ease of transmission and accessibility compared to written language or the technical complexity of audiovisual language. And this still holds true today. It is easy for Silvia to listen to a voice or sound and to speak – she can do so anywhere and at any time, even while going about other activities. Therefore, in a world where there is increasingly less time, interacting with digital devices through the voice continues to be
the fastest and simplest way. What is more, when Silvia listens to these devices or any cultural object, a painting or the narrator of an audiobook, she feels she is accompanied. This also occurs, for example, when she listens to cultural podcasts. It is an easy task that allows her to relax and taking out subscriptions to her favourite programmes makes it easier. But what is most important to her is the gratifying sensory and cognitive experience of listening to these products owing to the ability of sound to stim- ulate mental images, trigger emotions and draw
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Digital Trends in Culture