Impact of context-aware recommender systems on habitual listening patterns

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Musicology - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, language: English, abstract: With the ubiquitous availability and rapid travelling of information, networked media environments confront consumers with an abundance of information, which they can not handle by themselves. As consequence of that, digital media platforms (such as Spotify) make use of recommender systems, that suggest items based on anticipated user preferences. Thereby, algorithms assist users to navigate huge databases of items. Recommender systems turn out to be one of the most powerful tools to cope with information overload. On the other hand, digital music platforms afford user with new opportunities to add, share, comment or rank items and, thus, facilitate the formation of participatory music communities. However, very little is known about the socio-cultural consequences of computer mediated decision-making processes.