Audio forensics behind the Iron Curtain: from raw sounds to expert testimony
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11620%2F23%3A10476055" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11620/23:10476055 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=tK6qK6Va02" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=tK6qK6Va02</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20551940.2023.2232187" target="_blank" >10.1080/20551940.2023.2232187</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Audio forensics behind the Iron Curtain: from raw sounds to expert testimony
Original language description
This essay investigates the construction of forensic audio expertise in the legal and security system of Communist Czechoslovakia and shows that the contested nature of speaker identification and sound-based objectivity contributed to the formulation of probabilistic claims in forensics. It explores the practices of the Department of Fonoscopy: a unique research laboratory of audio forensics that systematically examined the spectrographic, linguistic, and auditory means of sound analysis for the purpose of identifying unknown voices and environments in audio recordings. Bringing together the notions of "forensic cultures" and "sonic skills", this article addresses the scientific, cultural, and political underpinning of the nascent field of audio expertise as well as the changing status of sound-based knowledge and forms of representation in forensics. In establishing fonoscopic expertise before the court and in the broader praxis of police investigation, the idea of vocal fingerprints and the use of sound visualisation technologies became instrumental. This essay pays special attention to the dynamics of the intricate process in which acoustic "raw material" (from anonymous calls, wiretapped phone lines, recorded conversations, or police interrogation rooms) was transformed into different kinds of legal and criminalistic evidence in the service of the totalitarian surveillance state.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/GJ20-30516Y" target="_blank" >GJ20-30516Y: The Second Sense: Sound, Hearing and Nature in the Czech Modernity</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Sound Studies
ISSN
2055-1940
e-ISSN
2055-1959
Volume of the periodical
9
Issue of the periodical within the volume
2
Country of publishing house
GB - UNITED KINGDOM
Number of pages
22
Pages from-to
187-208
UT code for WoS article
001037573000001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85165972512