The unfavourable environmental results of media tradition are usually not frequently stated: the gasoline required to maintain large server farms in operation, landfills choked with excessive tech junk, and the extraction of infrequent minerals for units reliant on them are only the various hidden expenditures of the modern mediascape. Eco-Sonic Media brings an ecological critique to the historical past of sound media applied sciences which will magnify the environmental undertones in sound stories and switch up the audio in discussions of greening the media. via early and overlooked varieties of sound expertise, Jacob Smith seeks to create a revisionist, ecologically acutely aware historical past of sound media. Delving into the background of pre-electronic media like hand-cranked gramophones, relatively green media artifacts comparable to the shellac discs that preceded using petroleum-based vinyl, early varieties of transportable expertise like divining rods, or even using songbirds as family song machines, Smith builds a scaffolding of old case stories to illustrate how "green media archaeology" could make sound reviews vibrate at an ecological frequency whereas establishing the ears of eco-criticism. all through this eye-opening and well timed booklet he makes readers extra conscious of the prices and outcomes in their own media intake by way of prompting comparisons with non-digital, non-electronic applied sciences and via supplying alternative ways within which sound media can develop into eco-sonic media. within the approach, he forges interdisciplinary connections, opens new avenues of analysis, and poses clean theoretical questions for students and scholars of media, sound reports, and modern environmental history.