PlatforMuse offers the first global analysis of how platforms are shaping – and being shaped by – the creative practices and working experiences of music artists. As such, this project makes a major contribution to understanding both the way platforms impact cultural production, as well as how platformization itself is shaped by the interplay between technologic innovation and culturally-specific user practices.
PlatforMuse takes music as a medium through which to examine the impacts of platformization. Defined as the spread of platform infrastructures, economic processes, and governance into different sectors and areas of life, platformization also involves the reshaping of cultural practices and imaginaries around these systems. While the political, economic and social influence of platform companies is well established, it has been pointed out that they primarily transform the ways in which culture is created, circulated, and consumed. Indeed, it is striking how many of the platforms belonging to the tech giants involve and intervene in creative industries and culture. As consumers and users, we may all experience how Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and YouTube have changed access to books, music, news and audiovisual content, yet we lack detailed insight into how such content is produced, and the everyday working conditions, practices, and imaginaries of cultural producers in the platform era.
There are a number of reasons why it is so important to understand changes in these sectors. It has been well established that the cultural industries (television, film, music, publishing, gaming etc.) require academic attention not only for their economic clout, but for the influence they exert on shaping our knowledge and experiences of the world we live in. The importance of these industries in the production of social meaning, also directs our attention to the creative workers and cultural producers who work in these industries. Culture and media exist only because labour brings them into being. While there is a tendency to forget, or ignore, the labour that goes into producing the media and cultural content that we enjoy consuming, the conditions and experiences of cultural producers matter, not least because it influences the culture they create and that we inhabit.
Music provides an ideal lens to examine platformization for a number of reasons. YouTube, Spotify and other social media and streaming services are among the first platforms to enter into the lives of children. As we grow older music platforms become deeply embedded within our most intimate and personal experiences. Music provides not only an unrivalled accompaniment to everyday life but also a window to the wider world. As the cultural form that most easily crosses borders, music provides a glimpse into the lives and desires of its creators, and the communities and cultures they draw from. Yet, we know very little about how the music artists we let into our lives are being impacted by the platforms they – and we - depend upon. Much more than a purely technological process, platformization is a deeply cultural and social phenomenon that needs to be situated within national histories, economic structures and cultural configurations of local music industries and tech sectors. We have a major blind spot however when it comes to understanding the platformization of cultural sectors beyond Europe and North America.
To address this blind spot PlatforMuse focuses on music artists as they experience and respond to music platforms in three carefully selected countries: the Netherlands; South Korea; and Nigeria. Music genres from each of these countries (Dutch EDM; Kpop, and Afrobeats) have been extremely successful on Spotify, YouTube and other global streaming and social media platforms. At the same time, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Nigeria represent three very different models and stages of music platformization. Through an innovative follow-the-artist approach that examines the rapidly changing music platform ecosystem as it is experienced and understood by music artists, over time and across distinct music cultures and systems, PlatforMuse provides much-needed insight into both the cultural dynamics of platformization and the impacts of platformization on culture.
