Spotify Users' Platform Experiences in the Context of Mutual Domestication

Both critical algorithm studies and recent scholarship centered on domestication theory emphasize the influence digital platforms have in shaping user behavior while also pointing to the importance of user agency. In their 2019 study, Siles et al. adapted domestication theory to digital platforms through their research on Netflix and developed the concept of mutual domestication. The domestication approach focuses on the shaping effect between everyday life, media technologies, and cultural elements. This study adapts the mutual domestication approach to Spotify as a cultural platform and examines the relationship between user agency and platforms' shaping effect by addressing it as a cyclical process. The study discusses the relationship between algorithm and culture, the transformation of the domestication approach through digital technologies, and the functional as well as algorithmic differences between Netflix, which was examined in the adapted study, and Spotify; it then presents the user-centered research that was conducted. A qualitative research method was adopted, and semi-structured in-depth interviews were chosen as the data collection technique. The sample consists of twenty Spotify users. The data obtained from the interviews conducted with the participants were analyzed descriptively, and the findings were categorized under five themes. In constructing the themes, the study of Siles et al. (2019) was followed; the interview data were interpreted under the themes of personalization, integration, rituals, resistance, and conversion. The research findings show that a dynamic of mutual domestication operates between the platform and the user, and that this process has a much more comprehensive character when compared with the study conducted on Netflix. At the same time, the study reveals that participants evaluate the platform-user relationship through a third actor, the music industry, and that user agency is shaped to a large extent within the framework of the possibilities offered by the platform.