ABSTRACT As algorithms have emerged as a key site of power in contemporary culture and society, they have been scrutinised by a number of media scholars, variously focusing on their opacity, bias and social implications. There has also been important work calling for a shift of attention away from the algorithms themselves to the actors that control them: the fundamental questions we should be asking of algorithms, after all, concern more than the specifics of code. This paper applies the arguments developed by Gillespie and Bucher to the algorithms utilised by music streaming services – the powerful but opaque curatorial systems that suggest songs to users. Although there has been important work on algorithms in the context of music streaming, this focus on music streaming remains relatively unusual. Even in the context of music streaming algorithms, our approach is also novel, in that we focus not on the possible effects upon users of music streaming platforms – that is, music fans – but, rather, on the possible effects on music creators. What, then, might be the effects upon songwriters and artists of the increasing prevalence of recommendation systems in music streaming?

中文翻译：

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超越音乐流媒体的黑匣子：推荐系统对艺术家的影响

摘要 随着算法已经成为当代文化和社会中的一个关键权力场所，它们受到了许多媒体学者的审查，重点关注它们的不透明性、偏见和社会影响。还有一些重要的工作要求将注意力从算法本身转移到控制它们的参与者：毕竟，我们应该向算法提出的基本问题不仅仅是代码的细节。本文将 Gillespie 和 Bucher 提出的论点应用于音乐流媒体服务所使用的算法——强大但不透明的策展系统，向用户推荐歌曲。尽管在音乐流媒体的背景下已经有重要的算法工作，但这种对音乐流媒体的关注仍然相对不寻常。即使在音乐流媒体算法的背景下，我们的方法也很新颖，因为我们不关注对音乐流媒体平台用户（即音乐粉丝）的可能影响，而是关注对音乐创作者的可能影响。那么，音乐流媒体中推荐系统的日益流行可能对歌曲作者和艺术家产生什么影响？