Nothing Personal About Personalization: Discrimination Practices within Music Streaming Service’s Personalization

• In Event: The Lyrical Navigation of Black Imagination

Abstract

This paper has a specific focus on equity by integrating the personalization practices of
music streaming services.
When I was a teenager, my Saturday afternoons were ritualistic in pursuing new music. I
would get on the train and begin my excursion to the local record store downtown, where I
would rifle through the myriad of artists and genres from blues and gospel to rap and R&B. The
search was euphoric and mesmerizing as my fingertips flipped through the CDs, vinyl, and
cassettes. This ritual of mine was more complex than looking for music; it was a type of looking
for (and hoping to find) identity. Megan Sullivan states, "Music became a way to remain
connected to their African heritage while protesting the bleak conditions African Americans
faced throughout history.” (Sullivan, 2001).
As technology advanced, many of my musical rituals were interrupted and eradicated for
what would be proclaimed a more desirable form of music culling. This new form would be
defined in the sector of Internet music streaming services (MSS). Scholar Richard Prey was
asking questions about these MSS and their role in the life of customers and society. “Whether
boundaries are being crossed, and whether questionable practices are being engineered?” (Prey,
2018). I, too, am asking questions about MSS and its claim to offer personalization by way of
algorithms to its subscribers, and does this personalization take into account race and ethnicity?
If race/ethnicity is not or cannot be personalized, do these MSS or its algorithms function as a
form of discrimination and/or racism?

Author

• Solomon Cochren, University of Memphis