Recent years have seen growing public and policy debates about the impacts of digital platforms on politics, the economy, and society. Platforms are considered “the distinguishing organizational form” (Pais & Stark, 2021, p.44) of the 21st century. Music provides a fascinating and illustrative lens through which to examine ‘platformization’ from both a global and a culturally-situated perspective.
This roundtable brings together scholars who are studying music production and consumption from diverse perspectives and in a diverse range of locales around the world. The participants in this roundtable are currently leading projects that research music platformization in the following countries: Brazil, Chile, China, the Netherlands, Nigeria, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Commonalities and differences in the platformization of music across these diverse cases will be highlighted in this roundtable. The discussion will focus on the problems of universalizing claims about how platforms are impacting musical labour and listening practices (production and consumption). A further point of focus will be on methodological challenges that arise when attempting to conduct international and comparative work in this emerging field.
By fostering interdisciplinary and cross-regional collaborations, we seek to develop a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective on the global implications of these digital transformations as they apply to music. Overall, this roundtable aims to discuss how we can better understand musical labour and listening practices in the platform era from a global perspective.
