Streaming Music

Streaming Music investigates how the Internet is affecting young people's uses of music in contemporary society, drawing on case studies from Moscow and Stockholm. Presenting both listeners' narratives as well as qualitative analyses of three online sites with music streaming functions, the authors highlight the global consequences of digitisation and examine local differences and contradictions in online music use. A study of streaming as part of wider music practices characterised by mobile digital media use, this book sheds light on the ways in which online technologies are providing tools for music listening, and how these are adapted in cultural and social environments.

Sofia Johansson is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University. Her research interests cover different forms of popular culture and the role of media in everyday life. She has extensive experience of qualitative audience research from working on a number of research projects, ranging from popular journalism, media and identity to online sociality, and she has published, for example, on social media use, celebrity culture and online music. She most recently co-authored the book Media Landscapes and Media Cultures: An Introduction (Medielandskap och mediekultur: En introduktion, Liber, 2016). Ann Werner is Associate professor in Gender studies at Södertörn University. Her main research interests are gender and music, feminist cultural studies and new media technologies. In her work she often combines these three fields of research using both gender and media theory. She defended her dissertation about music use and gender among young Swedish girls in multiethnic suburbs in 2009 and has since then worked on several research projects focusing music and gender. Her publications include work on mobility, Sami music and indigeneity, gender and race in Swedish popular music, as well as streaming music. Patrik Åker is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University. He has written about a wide range of topics, ranging from visual communication, journalism and historical perspectives on the media, to the relationships between media and spatiality. He has been a co-leader for a research project about the actual buildings for media institutions, and co-authored, as well as contributed, to a number of anthologies. Particular research interest concern media technologies and spatial media infrastructures, and that way that these, on- and offline, interlink with cultural experience. Gregory Goldenzwaig is a music and media researcher affiliated with Södertörn University in Sweden and Moscow State University in Russia. He defended his thesis on the minority media in Scandinavia at Moscow State University in 2003. His main research focus is the music industries and music consumption, subjects that he has been exploring both as a researcher and as a music practitioner. He has worked as a concert and festival promoter, music venue founder and journalist in Sweden and Russia, also as a university teacher in courses related to journalism and the cultural industries. Goldenzwaig has written several music industries and media mapping reports, commissioned by NDPC/Nordic Council of Ministers, European Music Office, and Music Norway. He is currently working as an editor for the Swedish Institute.

Introduction: Fields of research 1. Music, the Internet, streaming: Ongoing debates Part I Practices 2. Music, the Internet and everyday life: Contexts and practices 3. Experiencing music as part of connectivity culture 4. Clouds, streams, materiality: Perceptions of musical value in the age of abundance Part II Platforms 5. Spotify: Encountering music in the customized archive 6. VK: An expression of a post-recorded culture 7. Music on YouTube: Participation, intermediation and spreadability 8. Phones, applications, mobility: Framing music use on the go Conclusions