Digitally-mediated nature-connectedness?: Listeners' emotional responses to and perception of digitized nature sounds

Faced with the potential closure or privatization of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), it is important to reflect on the conservation efforts using soundscapes. This dissertation explores the gap between experts and lay listeners in listening to soundscapes through the digitally-mediated spaces (e.g. YouTube). In a pilot project conducted in 2024 that used facial emotional recognition software and a talk-aloud protocol, data on emotions was collected. Using NPS video recordings on its webpages, social media accounts and via other digital channels (YouTube, etc.) created by NPS experts, this project employed an innovative, interdisciplinary, mixed-methods experimental design to investigate the emotional responses of general listeners when exposed to digitally-mediated soundscapes created by experts with the intent to share emotions. Blending qualitative and quantitative research techniques, the study assessed the emotionality experienced by participants as they listened to curated soundscapes culled from videos. The experiment was specifically designed to measure affective reactions and provides a structured framework for conducting sound studies research to explore the understudied affectiveness of sound. This project builds the case for collaborating with listening knowledge experts to create new listening pedagogies and challenge the dominance of vision-centric modes. This dissertation provides a new methodical approach and novel tool for exploring the subtle emotions of digital soundscapes. Future research should investigate how the impacts of a deep listening educational component and multimedia or film presentation would help emotionally connect listeners to nature.