Smartphones, streaming platforms, and the infrastructuring of digital music practices

This chapter aims at advancing the intersections between science and technology studies (STS) and music studies by exploring some of these changes and, more specifically, those triggered by listeners’ adoption of smartphone-based music streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music. Since the 1980s, the notion of infrastructure became a crucial entry point in STS for disentangling the intersection between technology, people, and shared practices. Historians and sociologists interested in technology explored the role of infrastructures to analyze the implications of large sociotechnical systems like electric power grids and telephone networks. A fruitful terrain of convergence between STS and media studies has emerged in the last few years as a consequence of the rise of digital platforms as crucial sociotechnical entities in contemporary society. In recent years, this interest has expanded, recognizing the crucial role of media platforms in reshaping a wide array of human activities and relations in several different fields.