The algorithmic imaginary of cultural producers. Towards platformoptimized music?

The prominent role played by algorithmic platforms in people’s everyday lives has in recent years triggered a growing interest towards algorithmic imaginaries, intended as worlds of experience users make of the algorithmic media, thereby building up their own awareness of the platform and in turn moulding the algorithm itself through their performativity. Today, part of the construction of individual cultures takes place on streaming platforms, media environments where subjects access cultural materials and cultural exchanges occur. Platforms, such as Netflix or Spotify, have become privileged sites for studying the platformization of cultural production and the construction of algorithmic imaginaries by users and developers. Despite this, to date little has been discussed about cultural creators’ algorithmic imaginaries. This paper intends to discuss how to include algorithmic imaginaries in research regarding platforms and cultural production, by focusing on the case of music platforms. Specifically, the main goal of this contribution is to address the following issues in the light of existing literature: i) The role of algorithms as cultural gatekeepers and how they may affect the creative disposition of music producers, as well as their strategies to relate with the broader environment of cultural production and consumption. ii) The optimization of culture, i.e., how cultural producers may attempt to create platform-optimized products adapting their creative efforts to platforms’ affordances, thus fostering processes of product homogenization. Finally, suggestions will be made for future investigations regarding how all the actors in the music industry relate to streaming platforms

算法平台在人们日常生活中的突出作用，近年来引发了学界对算法想象（algorithmic imaginaries）的日益关注。算法想象指的是用户通过算法媒介构建的体验世界，借此形成对平台的认知，并通过自身的能动性反过来塑造算法本身。

如今，个体文化的构建部分发生在流媒体平台上——这是一个用户获取文化内容、开展文化交流的媒介环境。

Netflix、Spotify等平台已成为研究文化生产平台化（platformization）及用户与开发者算法想象构建的核心场域。

尽管如此，迄今为止，关于文化创作者算法想象的探讨仍较为匮乏。

本文旨在以音乐平台为案例，探讨如何将算法想象纳入平台与文化生产相关研究的范畴。

具体而言，本文的核心目标是结合现有文献探讨以下议题：i) 算法作为文化守门人（cultural gatekeepers）的角色，及其如何影响音乐生产者的创作倾向，以及他们与更广泛的文化生产消费环境互动的策略；ii) 文化的优化——即文化生产者如何通过调整创作实践以适配平台的可供性（affordances），进而打造平台优化产品，推动产品同质化进程。最后，本文将针对音乐行业所有参与者与流媒体平台的关系提出未来研究方向的建议。