Role of underlying diffusion mechanism and information digitization in a global network of streaming music

Abstract

Leveraging top charts in over 60 countries in the year 2017-2021 from the world’s largest streaming platform Spotify, I characterize music consumption patterns by constructing a global network of music diffusion between issuing countries and consuming countries. I adopt Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions theory to explain the underlying mechanism of music diffusion. In particular, I find that cultural differences between countries are negatively correlated with music diffusion. Further investigation using network analysis suggests that the music diffusion is asymmetric across countries: music issued by countries in the central positions of the network exerts more influence than those from other countries in the peripheral positions. Moreover, using clustering analysis, I demonstrate that the similarity of music tastes between countries in terms of acoustic features is positively correlated with their cultural similarity. Through my findings, I identify the important role of national culture in alternatively explaining music diffusion beyond the existing beliefs of common language and geographic proximity, which may shed light on music production and promotion in the streaming music era.