"First week is editorial, second week is algorithmic": platform gatekeepers and platformization of music curation

Abstract

This article investigates the logics that underpin music curation, and particularly the work of music curators, working at digital music streaming platforms. Based on ethnographic research that combines participant observation and a set of interviews with key informants, the article questions the relationship between algorithmic and human curation and the specific workings of music curation as a form of platform gatekeeping. We argue that music streaming platforms in combining proprietary algorithms and human curators constitute the “new gatekeepers” in an industry previously dominated by human intermediaries such as radio programmers, journalists, and other experts. The paper suggests understanding this gatekeeping activity as a form of “algo-torial power”, that has the ability to set the ‘listening agendas’ of global music consumers.

Studying Platforms and Cultural Production: Methods, Institutions, and Practices

“…Other contributors negotiated facetime with employees of cultural organizations. Sticking with their mandates as public-funded organizations, public broadcasters in the Netherlands, as shown in the contribution by Karin van Es and Thomas Poell, and in Italy and the United Kingdom (Bonini & Gandini, 2019) were willing to grant the researchers access to employees.…”

“…Whereas studying app stores and Twitch’s institutional relationships concerns an ecosystem level of analysis, Robert Prey’s paper takes the playlist feature, provided by music streaming platform Spotify, as his unit of analysis. In a productive dialogue with the work of Bonini and Gandini (2019), Prey follows a classical political economic mode of inquiry by conducting a close reading of press, trade publications, and Spotify’s obligatory Securities and Exchange Commission filings. His argument is that playlists allow for a broader analysis of how the company’s power derives from its ability to coordinate different markets: for music, advertising, and finance.…”

“…With dominant platform companies—especially the reigning foursome of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon—all headquartered on the US west coast, questions about the nexus of culture-power-geography—including concerns about cultural colonialism—have taken on a heightened urgency. So, too, has the need for a more robust understanding of non-US-based platforms—a challenge which a number of contributors have responded to by studying such European companies such as Soundcloud (Hesmondhalgh et al, 2019) and Spotify (Bonini & Gandini, 2019; Morris; Prey). In addition, various papers explore non-English-speaking communities engaging with platform companies, such as Spanish-speaking booktubers (Tomasena, 2019); Arriagada and Ibáñez’ explorative perspective on the interpretive processes of Chilean content creators; and Kim and Yu’s (2019) analysis of Webtoon creators in South Korea.…”

The Field as a Black Box: Ethnographic Research in the Age of Platforms

“…Our hypothesis was that, by going “into the field” of the new gatekeepers of the music industry and observing their practices through ethnographic methods, we could reach similar conclusions and shed new light on the dynamics of the interaction between the algorithmic infrastructures that support platforms and those who work for them (Bonini & Gandini, 2019).…”

“…This article aims to provide the reader with a detailed rendering of our field experience in the study of the music curators of online music streaming platforms. It is, in a way, a companion article to the one produced from that experience (Bonini & Gandini, 2019), where we did not have enough space to reflect extensively on our fieldwork. If the previous article mostly focused on the product of our ethnography, this article focuses on the process that led to that product, and why this process could be meaningful for the entire field of what could be called “online platform production” ethnography.…”