Paper short abstract:

Digital technologies have transformed music distribution and consumption, and streaming services such as Spotify are becoming increasingly popular. How is the dual heritage of individual freedom and commercial–institutional power played out in Spotify’s construction of users and audiences?

Paper long abstract:

Digital technologies are said to have transformed practices of music consumption, making music 'intangible' and 'ubiquitous' (e.g. Kassabian 2001; Styvén 2007). New forms of digital distribution have been launched as a response to non-authorized file-sharing - most notably commercial streaming services, such as Swedish Spotify, that promise 'free listening' to 'the right music' for 'everyone'. As people increasingly turn to this type of platforms, there is a need to understand the realities they promote and materialize. Much like Internet technologies in general, streaming media services build simultaneously on the vision of free and unlimited access ('everywhere, all the time') and on regulation through extensive curatorial practices and the collection of user data - a form of surveillance that have a profound impact on what is actually made available and to whom (e.g. Cheney-Lippold 2011).

The paper will focus on how this dual heritage of individual freedom and commercial-institutional power is played out in Spotify's construction of users and audiences. Drawing on a 'technographic approach' (Bucher 2012), I will discuss how Spotify, through their client, enable particular user practices and subjectivities. By investigating how normative assumptions are reproduced in the systematization and presentation of music collections, how personalized recommendations - either algorithmic or editorial - are constitutive of particular user positions (e.g. with respect to age, gender, location), and how users negotiate these positionings, the paper provides an understanding of how digital music platforms may be infused with norms, values, and power struggles.