Editorial

The metaphors we stream by: Making sense of music streaming

“…Technology does not hold a position as object outside the agency of the human. Rather, the categories are collapsed, to varying degrees" [34].…”

“…Music streaming was closely integrated into Nathalie's changing everyday life, and revealed an approach to using technology as something that "just happens," which aligned, in turn, with Markham's being metaphor as something you not 'do,' but something that just 'is' [35]. Nathalie's Spotify use was an expression and a negotiation of herself, both with and through technology [36]. Her streaming links to her thinking and activities, so that life, music and technology merged into an all-encompassing act of experience linked to her notions of selfhood and identity.…”

“…The connections I have drawn from the data up to this point, however, only partly capture today's music-streaming experiences. That is, among other things, because the metaphors used to structure the analysis barely touch upon Internet experiences via mobile media [40], which have now become commonplace. With the ubiquitous Internet, ever-present music access also follows via services that have overtaken personal mobile media devices.…”

“…In this everyday mode of streaming, the individual sense-making of music listening primarily revolved around the self, and how the self interacted with and realized the world in the present. This happened in tandem with applied technology, which again evoked the human-technology collapse of the "way of being" framework [44]. Still, the casual way of being on/through/with music-streaming services violated the sense-making exemplified earlier by Nina and Nathalie, who saw music streaming as a context-and identity-sensitive way of being, expressing and negotiating self-identities, ongoing life projects and relationships, via thoughtful and controlled, rather than casual, technology use.…”

“…Sense-making was shaped by immediate, often sudden perceptions that corresponded with attention given to music. Markham briefly addressed such perceptions as part of her "way of being" framework as well [45], but the transitory influences of online technologies on our everyday experiences seemed to have multiplied in tandem with the ubiquitous Internet. As online technology has become ever easier to use, increased human-technology integration was fostered, and as evident here, the relationships were even internalized as part of the users' operative condition of experiencing and practicing everyday life.…”