“Splendid Isolation”: The reproduction of music industry inequalities in Spotify’s recommendation system

Abstract

In this article, we argue that offline inequalities, such as core–periphery relations of the music industry, are reproduced by streaming platforms. First, we offer an overview of the reproduction of inequalities and core–periphery dynamics in the music industry. Then we illustrate this through a small-scale network analysis case study of Hungarian metal bands’ connections on Spotify. We show that the primary determinant of a given band’s international connectedness in Spotify’s algorithmic ecosystem is their international label connections. Bands on international labels have more reciprocal international connections and are more likely to be recommended based on actual genre similarity. However, bands signed with local labels or self-published tend to have domestic connections and to be paired with other artists by Spotify’s recommendation system according to their country of origin.

Collaboration and Competition: A Social Network Analysis of Thailand’s Music Industry

“…One area of particular interest has been the influence of new technologies, especially music streaming, due to their potential to modify market concentration and spur innovation. Their results suggested that streaming has decreased concentration by offering independent artists a platform to compete with major labels (Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf 2007; Aguiar and Waldfogel 2015;Tofalvy and Koltai 2023). In another study, Ko and Lau (2015) explored the music streaming business model, emphasizing the prominent role of a few global brands, such as Spotify and Deezer (Paris, France), in the streaming era.…”

“…The music industry, both on a global scale and in Thailand, plays an integral role in the broader cultural and economic framework. Music can shape societal identities and promote social structure as an influential cultural factor (Tofalvy and Koltai 2023). Furthermore, its economic significance is evident, with global revenues ascending to $21.6 billion in 2020, marking a compound annual growth rate of 7.4% from 2017 to 2020 (IFPI 2020).…”

Commonality in Recommender Systems: Evaluating Recommender Systems to Enhance Cultural Citizenship

“…Overall, it is striking that the various forms of bias shown by the under-representation of cultural content with respect to gender, race, class, and region (i.e., diversity of source or provider) correspond to wider core-periphery dynamics and geographical inequalities in the cultural industries [19,91,99]. It seems that recommender systems often mirror these inequalities, promoting Western-centric popular cultural content, in the English language, released by major producers [100].…”

Pop Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem: From Cassettes to Stream. Edited by Tamás Tófalvy and Emília Barna. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 2020. 257 pp. ISBN 978-3-030-44658-1 - Made in Hungary: Studies in Popular Music. Edited by Emília Barna and Tamás Tófalvy. London: Routledge. 2017. 192 pp. ISBN 978-1-138-91587

“…The ability of performers and audiences to utilise any medium or interactive mode at hand to find each other is indeed impressive (although continuously exploited by monopolistic entities). A next step is now to take up inequality and violence within contemporary media infrastructures (see Tófalvy and Koltai 2021).…”