Diplomacy: Audible and Resonant
Résumé
Diplomacy is sonorous: diplomats deliver speeches, manage silences, applaud, and laugh; they give toasts, clink glasses, and make noise. They listen to the tone of their interlocutors and modulate the timbre of their own voices. Sound – a vital component of representation, mediation, and negotiation – permeates the record of diplomacy, as media transmits images or recordings of leaders in the act of giving a speech or holding a conversation. And music, or “organized sound,” is a standard feature of diplomatic ceremonial, solemn commemorations, social occasions, and the work of public and cultural diplomacy.