"First week is editorial, second week is algorithmic": platform gatekeepers and platformization of music curation
This article investigates the logics that underpin music curation, and particularly the work of music curators, working at digital music streaming platforms. Based on ethnographic research that combines participant observation and a set of interviews with key informants, the article questions the relationship between algorithmic and human curation and the specific workings of music curation as a form of platform gatekeeping. We argue that music streaming platforms in combining proprietary algorithms and human curators constitute the “new gatekeepers” in an industry previously dominated by human intermediaries such as radio programmers, journalists, and other experts. The paper suggests understanding this gatekeeping activity as a form of “algo-torial power”, that has the ability to set the ‘listening agendas’ of global music consumers.