Exploring the operationalisation of music through Spotify’s manufactured user experiences

Abstract

Music streaming platforms powered by recommendation technologies offer users round-the-clock-access to a seemingly limitless abundance of musical content. As of 2022, platforms such as Spotify are responsible for generating 67% of overall global recorded music revenue. These platforms use a combination of data, interface design, and personalisation features to promote playlists and manufacture music listening experiences which cover a range of human experiences. However, due to these technologies being in a relatively early stage, their influence and impact on users remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this thesis uses Spotify as a pilot research study, due to the platform’s hundreds of millions of monthly active users and the recent national and legislative attention that it has received due to streaming’s perceived economic and social impact.

This interdisciplinary thesis employs a mixed method approach that utilises both quantitative and qualitative data to explore how music is presented to Spotify users through the platform’s interfaces, and how users’ navigation and uses of the platform has changed their engagement practices and connection to music. Firstly, I utilise interface walkthroughs and retrieved Spotify metadata to break down the operationalisation of music. I examine the numerous aesthetic and technological methods used by Spotify to promote playlists and generate personalised recommendations which draw users into the microcosm of themed audio. Secondly, I interview a diverse mixture of Spotify users to gain an understanding of how listeners navigate Spotify, and the impact that their use has had on their views and treatment of music. From the analysis, it emerges that Spotify users actively embed music streaming within multiple aspects of their lives which include increasingly diverse social, professional, and functional environments. However, I also argue that the result of utilising Spotify as an on-demand, unlimited cataloguing utility has caused both positive and negative shifts in users’ association and expectations of music. Therefore, this thesis contributes theoretically, methodologically, and demographically to a number of ongoing dialogues within the wider music streaming research landscape.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Allison Jane Noble: orcid.org/0000-0001-7611-7465

ORCID for Nicholas Gibbins: orcid.org/0000-0002-6140-9956

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