COVID-19 and sonic governmentality: Can we hear the virus speak?

Abstract

A virus is not only invisible; it is also inaudible. Alongside attempts to visualize COVID-19, this article inserts a sonic perspective to listen to encounters between authorities and populations during the pandemic in China. The article examines how sound (mal)functions to mediate, interpellate, and distribute authority and power in the name of national health and safety. We will concentrate on the use of sirens and loudspeakers. First, at 10 a.m. on 4 April 2020, sirens were sounded throughout the nation to mark an official National Day of Mourning (全民哀悼日). Second, to reach places not readily accessible by more modern means of communication, rural leaders resorted to loudspeakers to announce virus-related messages to offline populations. Our curiosity about the sonic element was piqued. At the same time, we were reminded of ocularcentrism – the tendency or the bias to place the visual at the centre of inquiry. We argue for the need to engage with sonic practices and politics, and to foreground sound as a tool of governmentality. We want to document how certain instances of sonic governmentality played out in China during the pandemic. Finally, this inquiry should help us explore possible avenues for future research on sound and politics.

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“…Had I not left Shanghai in early 2021, I would have been one of those subjected to the intrusion of loudspeaker noises, day and night. As sociologist Guobin Yang writes in The Wuhan Lockdown (2022: 44), one of the anti-Covid campaign (Guo and Hao 2021;Li and Zhang 2020;Zhang and Chow 2021). Two years later, during the 2022 Shanghai lockdowns, the loudspeakers coupled with the use of robotic dogs and drones are both a continuation of the CCP's ongoing efforts to mobilise loudspeakers for political campaigns in the digital era and evidence of a further alienation of human bodies detached from digitised monotone voices.…”

The Rite of Passage and Digital Mourning in Fang Fang’sWuhan Diary

“…Fang Fang was also former chair of Hubei's Writers' Association, and as such we believe her prominent position as a local writer and accountability to tell the story of Wuhan was significantly strong and relevant. Fang Fang is an insider of the then status quo in Wuhan, and this makes her diary unique and this research significant given the fact that few studies have examined recent competing narratives of COVID-19 with a few exceptions (Litzinger & Ni, 2021;Sier, 2021;Zhang & Chow 2021;Zhang, 2021). Fang Fang's digital diary provides a deeper understanding of how both people in society and digital media reflected on China's efforts to contain the coronavirus, and the serious disruption of these policies to traditional mourning rituals.…”