Datafication, Literacy, and Democratization in the Music Industry

Abstract

This article frames the relationship between datafication and literacy as a key to understand participation, power, and processes of democratization in a platform–dominated music industry. Drawing upon a Norwegian surve (n = 555) and in-depth interviews with music-industry actors, the analysis demonstrates commercial benefits of data-usage, and why many have yet to take advantage of datafication’s possibilities. The article indicates that datafication creates and maintains a digital divide in the music industry, with service providers as gatekeepers, datafication a core activity, and data a prime commodity. And meanwhile, the data-literate partner achieves power and positioning, making data literacy a key resource in and of itself.