Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MUSICSTREAM (Music Culture in the Age of Streaming)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-06-01 al 2024-11-30
The very nature of music as a cultural practice is changing across the world. MUSICSTREAM examines why and how this is happening, and the implications for the role of music in people’s lives.
Hundreds of millions of people across the world now experience music via ‘streaming services’ such as Spotify and Apple Music, which offer on-demand access, by means of internet or mobile telephony, to vast catalogues of music, either ‘free’ (advertising-supported) or via subscription.
Meanwhile, other ways of experiencing music, via radio, television and live performance, are changing. Social media and short video play key roles that are still poorly understood.
A new system of music production, distribution and consumption has developed, and there are many controversies about it. Yet there has been no sustained, integrated analysis of this system, the considerable international variations within it, nor its effects on musical culture.
MUSICSTREAM provides such analysis, focusing especially on Europe, North America and China, but also bringing together research from across the world via symposia and collaborative publication.
The objectives of the project are as follows.
1. To understand how digital platforms relevant to the distribution and consumption of music operate, in terms of their business models, functions and interfaces.
2. In terms of musical production and distribution, to understand what new possibilities, challenges and constraints face musicians and intermediaries in the new musical system.
3. In terms of musical consumption and experience, to understand how and in what ways the pleasures and emotional experiences afforded by music might be changing with the new centrality of streaming.
4. To test the positions taken in public debate and controversy against current realities and assess the impacts of the new musical system on music culture.
5. To understand international variation in all the above.
6. To synthesise empirical findings into a (re)theorisation of music in the streaming age, with an emphasis on how people value music’s roles in their lives.
Hundreds of millions of people across the world now experience music via ‘streaming services’ such as Spotify and Apple Music, which offer on-demand access, by means of internet or mobile telephony, to vast catalogues of music, either ‘free’ (advertising-supported) or via subscription.
Meanwhile, other ways of experiencing music, via radio, television and live performance, are changing. Social media and short video play key roles that are still poorly understood.
A new system of music production, distribution and consumption has developed, and there are many controversies about it. Yet there has been no sustained, integrated analysis of this system, the considerable international variations within it, nor its effects on musical culture.
MUSICSTREAM provides such analysis, focusing especially on Europe, North America and China, but also bringing together research from across the world via symposia and collaborative publication.
The objectives of the project are as follows.
1. To understand how digital platforms relevant to the distribution and consumption of music operate, in terms of their business models, functions and interfaces.
2. In terms of musical production and distribution, to understand what new possibilities, challenges and constraints face musicians and intermediaries in the new musical system.
3. In terms of musical consumption and experience, to understand how and in what ways the pleasures and emotional experiences afforded by music might be changing with the new centrality of streaming.
4. To test the positions taken in public debate and controversy against current realities and assess the impacts of the new musical system on music culture.
5. To understand international variation in all the above.
6. To synthesise empirical findings into a (re)theorisation of music in the streaming age, with an emphasis on how people value music’s roles in their lives.
The project has gathered information and perspectives on streaming business models and functions, and has conducted extensive fieldwork in the UK and China, tracing the development of digital music and music streaming there. We have also attended music industry and tech conferences in the USA and Europe. The resulting data are being analysed, and at least two monographs are being developed on this topic. We have conducted an extensive literature review on the automated recommendation systems that are central to the operations of music streaming platforms and this literature review was very frequently cited in a 2023 UK government report on the impact of “algorithms” on music consumption. The team has also investigated the musical taxonomies used by music streaming services in terms of their potential effects on how music is circulated. We have also undertaken extensive historical and theoretical work on how the shift from peer-to-peer sharing to digital platforms relates to developments in internet infrastructure, already resulting in two published articles. We have analysed the interfaces of the seven main music streaming platforms currently operating in the UK, in order to understand how they potentially influence musical consumption.
We have conducted focus groups in China and the UK, interviewing a wide range of musicians about how they understand these possibilities, challenges and constraints, and are currently analysing the resulting material in order to triangulate these understandings with our analysis of the operations of music streaming platforms. The music industry conferences we have attended as part of our fieldwork have been a rich source of data and industry contacts. Extensive fieldwork in China has examined, through oral history interviews, different phases in how musicians and intermediaries have understood the digitalisation of music in that country. Two monographs, one on the development of music, technology and culture in China (monograph 1), and another on the place of music in information capitalism (monograph 2), are planned for completion by early 2026.
We have collected data in the form of 44 diaries of musical lives over three weeks, 22 in the UK and 22 in China, with an opening and closing interview. We are very close to completing one article, which addresses our diarists mixed aesthetically-oriented and more functionally-oriented experiences of music in their daily lives, both on and off music streaming platforms. We have also completed a first draft of another article on how our diarists discussed their use of music in the home and at work, and in transitioning between the two. Further fieldwork is about to begin in France and Spain on the consumption of rap and flamenco. This and other material will be integrated into a monograph planned for completion in early 2026.
Across this research, we are developing our understanding of the impacts of music streaming platforms on music culture, and assessing the degree to which various contributions to public debate are accurate in their depiction of them. For example, our literature review of research on music recommender systems included extensive discussion of public understandings of “algorithms”, and what research tells us about the actual realities.
A key aim of the project is to understand international variation in the forms that music streaming takes. A two-day symposium was held in January 2023 in Leeds on “Music Streaming Across the World”, attended by the team and by six international speakers, plus a further ten online (including co-I Qu Shuwen), plus researchers from the University of Leeds. An edited collection of 14 chapters, four of them authored by members of the team, has been submitted to University of California Press. Covering China, India, Japan, Egypt, Kenya, Mexico, the USA, Hungary and Italy, and addressing issues regarding global inequalities in music, the collection is intended as a major contribution to understanding cultural flows in the era of digital platforms. It is expected the edited collection will be published in early 2025.
Finally, it is intended to produce a monograph, due for completion by late 2025, theorising music and society in the streaming age. A major international conference is planned for 2026, which will aid in disseminating research already completed on our project, and in helping to shape final revision for the synthesising monographs to be completed in 2025-6.
We have conducted focus groups in China and the UK, interviewing a wide range of musicians about how they understand these possibilities, challenges and constraints, and are currently analysing the resulting material in order to triangulate these understandings with our analysis of the operations of music streaming platforms. The music industry conferences we have attended as part of our fieldwork have been a rich source of data and industry contacts. Extensive fieldwork in China has examined, through oral history interviews, different phases in how musicians and intermediaries have understood the digitalisation of music in that country. Two monographs, one on the development of music, technology and culture in China (monograph 1), and another on the place of music in information capitalism (monograph 2), are planned for completion by early 2026.
We have collected data in the form of 44 diaries of musical lives over three weeks, 22 in the UK and 22 in China, with an opening and closing interview. We are very close to completing one article, which addresses our diarists mixed aesthetically-oriented and more functionally-oriented experiences of music in their daily lives, both on and off music streaming platforms. We have also completed a first draft of another article on how our diarists discussed their use of music in the home and at work, and in transitioning between the two. Further fieldwork is about to begin in France and Spain on the consumption of rap and flamenco. This and other material will be integrated into a monograph planned for completion in early 2026.
Across this research, we are developing our understanding of the impacts of music streaming platforms on music culture, and assessing the degree to which various contributions to public debate are accurate in their depiction of them. For example, our literature review of research on music recommender systems included extensive discussion of public understandings of “algorithms”, and what research tells us about the actual realities.
A key aim of the project is to understand international variation in the forms that music streaming takes. A two-day symposium was held in January 2023 in Leeds on “Music Streaming Across the World”, attended by the team and by six international speakers, plus a further ten online (including co-I Qu Shuwen), plus researchers from the University of Leeds. An edited collection of 14 chapters, four of them authored by members of the team, has been submitted to University of California Press. Covering China, India, Japan, Egypt, Kenya, Mexico, the USA, Hungary and Italy, and addressing issues regarding global inequalities in music, the collection is intended as a major contribution to understanding cultural flows in the era of digital platforms. It is expected the edited collection will be published in early 2025.
Finally, it is intended to produce a monograph, due for completion by late 2025, theorising music and society in the streaming age. A major international conference is planned for 2026, which will aid in disseminating research already completed on our project, and in helping to shape final revision for the synthesising monographs to be completed in 2025-6.
We undertook a literature review on automated music recommendation systems which is the first we know of (in English) which comprehensively covers both the computer science and the critical social science and humanities literature, and which compares and contrasts their methods, assumptions and findings. This work has been extended by investigations into the taxonomies underlying platform systems, and how this might impact on questions of international cultural inequality. We have conducted innovative research into how digital infrastructure has shaped the development of platformization of music in Europe, North America and China. Our account goes significantly beyond existing accounts of digital music in China, which have been dominated by the issue of intellectual property enforcement. The distinctive and important case of China plays a major part in our project, and we hope to build on our achievements in the second half of the project. The edited collection that has been compiled as a key output of the project far exceeds the international range of current research on music streaming.