Playlisting the periphery: Platform intermediaries and East-Central European music visibility in Spotify’s geography

IF 4.5 1区 文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION
Miloš Hroch, Petr Szczepanik
{"title":"Playlisting the periphery: Platform intermediaries and East-Central European music visibility in Spotify’s geography","authors":"Miloš Hroch, Petr Szczepanik","doi":"10.1177/14614448251346200","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Spotify’s engagement with East-Central European (ECE) music markets, exploring how platformization intersects with peripherality. Using insights from the political economy of global media and platform studies, it situates Spotify within the asymmetrical geographies of platform capitalism, where peripheral regions are more consumption markets than cultural centers. While Spotify emphasizes egalitarian access through playlisting and algorithmic tools, the findings reveal persistent inequalities shaped by “spatial gatekeeping.” Focusing on how regional actors, mediating between artists and the platform, experience these inequalities, the article draws on interviews and “scavenging” ethnography to develop a typology of “platform intermediaries,” including regional playlist editors, digital distributors, major label representatives, and music creators. These intermediaries internalize spatial gatekeeping in their practices and platform imaginaries, which reflect perceived distance from geographic and algorithmic centers and aspirations to transcend peripherality. The article offers a nuanced account of platform geography’s asymmetries as experienced from the periphery.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Media & Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251346200","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article examines Spotify’s engagement with East-Central European (ECE) music markets, exploring how platformization intersects with peripherality. Using insights from the political economy of global media and platform studies, it situates Spotify within the asymmetrical geographies of platform capitalism, where peripheral regions are more consumption markets than cultural centers. While Spotify emphasizes egalitarian access through playlisting and algorithmic tools, the findings reveal persistent inequalities shaped by “spatial gatekeeping.” Focusing on how regional actors, mediating between artists and the platform, experience these inequalities, the article draws on interviews and “scavenging” ethnography to develop a typology of “platform intermediaries,” including regional playlist editors, digital distributors, major label representatives, and music creators. These intermediaries internalize spatial gatekeeping in their practices and platform imaginaries, which reflect perceived distance from geographic and algorithmic centers and aspirations to transcend peripherality. The article offers a nuanced account of platform geography’s asymmetries as experienced from the periphery.
周边播放列表:平台中介和中东欧音乐在Spotify地理上的可见度
本文考察了Spotify与中东欧(ECE)音乐市场的合作,探讨了平台化如何与外围性交叉。利用全球媒体和平台研究的政治经济学见解,它将Spotify置于平台资本主义的不对称地理位置中,在这些地理位置中,周边地区更多的是消费市场,而不是文化中心。虽然Spotify强调通过播放列表和算法工具实现平等访问,但研究结果揭示了“空间守门人”造成的持续不平等。这篇文章聚焦于在艺术家和平台之间进行调解的地区行动者如何经历这些不平等,并通过访谈和“拾取”人种学来发展“平台中介”的类型学,包括地区播放列表编辑、数字分销商、主要厂牌代表和音乐创作者。这些中介在实践和平台想象中内化了空间把关,这反映了与地理和算法中心的感知距离以及超越外围性的愿望。这篇文章提供了一个细致入微的描述,从外围体验到平台地理的不对称性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
New Media & Society
New Media & Society COMMUNICATION-
CiteScore
12.70
自引率
8.00%
发文量
274
期刊介绍: New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:604180095
Book学术官方微信