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By Nuné NikoghosyanUntil recently, there were two main ways of discovering cultural products: the media (radio, television, magazines…) and word-of-mouth recommendations by acquaintances, friends and family. But, our discovery of cultural products is nowadays more and more through online recommendation systems, be it of songs, films, books, etc. The algorithms behind these recommendation systems are usually kept secret and would, in any case, be fairly incomprehensible for most of us non-specialists. Sociology, in its turn, has long tried to analyse and explain the formation of cultural taste, resulting in many, and at times even contradictory, theories and perspectives. I suggest here, as food for thought, a quick analytical glance at one particular online recommendation system in music, the online radio Last.fm, from two opposing theoretical perspectives in sociology: the critical theories and the perspective of the rational choice.The online recommendation system on Last.fm…Websites such as Last.fm use automated recommendation systems that suggest music that we may like, based on our personal taste of music as calculated by secret algorithms. Last.fm uses different criteria for creating a personal profile of each user’s musical taste. This means, first of all, keeping a history of the tracks that each user has listened to on the website or on a computer or personal device, registered thus on Last.fm through its programme called “Scrobbler”, upon agreement with the user. All of these tracks then constitute the user’s “musical library” on the site. Each user’s page shows various lists such as “top tracks”, “top artists”, “top albums”, etc., presenting the person’s musical library and taste according to data fed into Last.fm.Each piece of music on Last.fm is categorized into musical genres and other types of features, such as “male vocalist”, or more ironic tags like “overrated”. This categorization is mostly done by the users themselves, though without obligation, usually known under terms such as “collective tagging” or “folksonomy” (Trant 2009). One explanation of possible motivations behind this practice by users is the argument of “selfishness” – tagging is a mode of archiving that helps the user find objects/texts with more ease in the future. However, this selfish motif then leads to a public good, on a more macro level, since the tagged objects/texts are then searchable by everyone using the same tags. If, for example, two pieces of music have been tagged as “punk” by a few users, among other criteria, then they will be rated as similar by the algorithms of Last.fm and each piece may then be recommended as a potential favourite to a user who has already listened to the other.To listen to the online radio, users have various options. First, they can choose for the radio to play songs that have been rated as “similar” to a particular artist or that have been categorized under the same musical genre. Second, users can listen to already constituted musical libraries, such as their own or those of their “friends” or “neighbours”, or the list of tracks they have categorized as favourites. “Neighbours” are users of the site who share similar tastes. In fact, any user can see his or her compatibility of taste with any other user by just visiting personal pages, thanks to the tool called “taste-o-meter” that measures compatibility of tastes from “very low” to “super”. Finally, users can set the online radio to play their personalized recommendations – tracks that Last.fm’s algorithms have calculated to be similar to what each user usually listens to.… seen sociologically To start the debate, let us first consider Last.fm’s online recommendation system from the perspective of the so-called “critical theories” in sociology, by leaning on the works of theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Pierre Bourdieu.Theodor Adorno is the theorist who has popularized the term “culture industry”, referring to the standardization of modern productions methods of cultural products and, thus, of the products themselves. His “pessimism” and “worry”, as his views are more commonly summarized today, lie behind the commercialization of cultural products (hence culture itself) and the dangers of propaganda when the source of production is unique or concentrated in the hands of a few, addressing everyone in the same standard manner, and especially under the pretext of “entertainment”. According to Adorno, such a cultural industry will, inevitably, strip individuals from their intellectual and critical capacities, cultural products requiring thus less and less contemplation to be understood. To have fun and be entertained, he says, means to agree, even to the point of becoming submerged by a form of powerlessness (Adorno 1974).Following this line of thought, we can argue that online recommendation systems are a continuation of the more traditional forms of media, such as radio, in their blinding aspects: neither having a say in what is played as a recommendation on their online radio, nor understanding the detailed mechanisms behind the algorithms, users of such websites become “powerless” in the sense argued by Adorno. In fact, the only direct way the user can intervene in what is being played to them as a recommendation is by clicking the “next” button to change tracks, or by not playing the radio at all. We can even go further and argue that users are thus “oriented” and “disciplined” by online recommendations systems to like certain pieces of music, without knowing how exactly those pieces have been judged as “similar” to others that they presumably like. How can a user be sure that a piece that is thus being recommended is really based on a range of arguably more or less “objective” criteria taken into account by the algorithms (based on one’s taste, musical library, collective tagging systems, friends’ libraries, etc.) and not decided by a handful few, almost an elite, pursuing their own goals in marketing, publicity or even propaganda? How can a user be sure that the recommendations do not spring from one and only source – the cultural industry itself – with the aim to “discipline” tastes of a large online audience?Turning to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, we can also consider online recommendation systems from a more determinist perspective. Especially with his concept of “habitus”, Bourdieu has elaborated a theory that combines the “subjective” with the “objective”, arguing that society is a complex system of relationships determined by the social position of every individual. Social positions, in turn, are interlinked and determined by their relative place in a field, like iron fillings spread onto a magnetic field. This theory being very thorough and complex, let us concentrate here on one aspect of it: the formation of an individual’s taste as determined by their social position in a field and social milieu (Bourdieu 1979; Bodin et al. 2004).As for online recommendation systems, such a viewpoint turns the attention to a certain “determinism”, even “domination”, in the discovery of music. But, the determinism here would be less in terms of social positions or class within one’s immediate social milieu, and more regarding a virtual milieu consisting of “friends” and “neighbours” (other users with a similar taste, so potential “friends”). As a user, for example, my recommendations will be influenced by the musical tastes of my friends on Last.fm insofar as playing the radio channels of my friends’ musical libraries will mean feeding this data into the site’s algorithms as tracks that I have listened to. If my Last.fm friends have very similar tastes, and if I often listen to their musical libraries, then the recommendations I receive will be very similar to what I usually listen to. Similarly, if my friends have very diverse tastes and if I listen to their musical libraries, then my recommendations will also be very diverse. In both cases, my virtual milieu of music lovers – that I build more or less from zero by creating links and “friendships” with other users of Last.fm – will somehow determine, or at least influence, what pieces of music I will discover through automated recommendations, gradually shaping the development of my musical taste over time.These recommendations and the similarity of musical pieces being calculated by automated algorithms, we can even speak of a different kind of determinism: instead of a social determinism in its strictest sense, we can consider a certain determinism of majority, that of a virtual milieu. When the recommendations are based on “tags” that users have given to the musical pieces (cf. “collective tagging”), the result is a numerical sum of judgements by thousands of individuals worldwide. Let us not forget that the songs least listened to will also be the ones least categorized and tagged, hence with lesser chances of being recommended as “similar music”. What will be most recommended, then, is the most visible and popular music – the songs most listened to and tagged. If we discover music through online recommendations, then these automated systems have a considerable power in shaping our discoveries, and our musical taste more generally, since they are very likely to be based on a quantitative approach of what the majority of users listens to and tags, hence even prone to being moulded by forces navigating the cultural industry itself.Moving away from critical theories, let us turn to the perspectives of “rational choice” and “pragmatism” in sociology. Originating from economics, the “rational choice” approach counteracts the critical and determinist perspective, bringing into the limelight the individual’s capacity to act rationally – in a reflexive and reasoned manner. It is no longer question, here, of individuals being “blinded” or “duped” by higher powers, but of individual and reasoned acts aiming to achieve certain goals through certain means. According to the sociologist Raymond Boudon (2010) – a founder of this approach – all human activity and social behaviour is rational, including religious beliefs, scientific principles, values and social norms, personal goals, etc. That is, even what appears at first to be “irrational” has a perfectly rational explanation behind it, from every individual’s point of view. Similarly, the pragmatist approach in sociology urges us, in this case, to take into account every individual’s role in the making of his or her own cultural taste: the choices made, what is appreciated and, on the contrary, criticised and rejected. Taste, here, is no longer given, let alone determined by the social milieu or forces external to the individual, but is instead caught in a continuous process of formation, like a work-in-progress, fed by instances of judgement, critique, appreciation, etc. by the individual. The sociologist Antoine Hennion (2005) – a key figure in the pragmatist approach – builds on the notion of rationality to not only plead for giving human actions and reflexivity a central role in theories of taste formation, but further argues that the body transforms itself over time as it learns how to taste and pick favourites.Viewed from this angle, much of the activity on Last.fm can be explained in terms of individual motivations and rational reflexivity. Creating an account on this site is in itself an intentional act, just as the choice to listen to the online radio, the recommendations, etc. and the practice of “tagging” and categorizing tracks that will, in the end, contribute to the algorithmic calculations of similarities between songs and help generate better (i.e. more similar) recommendations. Also, users can shape their recommendations, and more generally what is played on their personal radio, by using the tool to either “love” or “ban” a track, causing it to either be played more often or never again.A less powerful tool, but one that can be strategically used, is the choice of “friends” on Last.fm: a list of friends with a wide range of musical tastes or, on the contrary, a narrow scope will influence our recommendations, especially if we often listen to their musical libraries. If I am on the lookout for music that is new to me, for example, then I will be inclined to strategically choose “friends” with radically differing tastes. In contrast, having “friends” with tastes similar to mine will only confirm my own taste, as the recommendations will revolve around the same artists that both my “friends” and I already know. A personal network of “friends” on Last.fm can thus be a very rational tool in the development of one’s personal taste, using the tastes and musical libraries of others, and less of a tool for contact or communication in a stricter sense.Let us not forget the tool that, widely used, indicates perhaps most clearly users’ reflexivity and activity in taste formation: group discussions. In fact, Last.fm allows for different types of discussions in various forms – private, public, semi-public, etc. Some of the most critical users even create groups, for example, to openly contest their recommendations or to recommend pieces directly to each other (‘Obscure Music Recommendations’, ‘I hate my recommendations’, etc.).Concluding remarksWe can thus see that even though online recommendation systems, through their automated regimes, can remain blind spots for music listeners and may even be used as a tool to reorient listeners’ tastes, users of websites such as Last.fm may, in turn, strategically use a range of tools to manipulate the automated system to their own benefit, in the construction of their own musical taste. Users of automated systems remain critical and may well engage in critical activities, confronting artists, albums, recommended pieces, etc., judging certain pieces as more or less to their taste, constructing a playlist of favourite tracks, or even contributing to the “tagging” of tracks for better recommendations in the future. Online recommendation systems are undoubtedly shaping more and more of our cultural discoveries, and with the range of tools available to all sides (producers, consumers, web developers, etc.) being in constant change, the debate remains open to more rigorous research.References Adorno, Theodor (1974) “La production industrielle de biens culturels. Raison et mystification des masses”, La dialectique de la raison, Paris : Gallimard, 129-175.Bodin, D., Héas, S., Robpne, L. (2004) “Les goûts sportifs: entre distinction et pratique élective raisonnée”, Sociologie et sociétés, vol. 36, n° 1, 187-207.Boudon, Raymond (2010) “La rationalité ordinaire : colonne vertébrale des sciences sociales”, L’Année sociologique, vol. 60, n° 1, 19-40.Bourdieu, Pierre (1979) La Distinction, Paris: Editions de Minuit.Hennion, Antoine (2005) “Pour une pragmatique de gout”, Papiers de recherche du CSI, n° 001, 1-14.Trant, Jennifer (2009) “Studying Social Tagging and Folksonomy. A Review and Framework”, Journal of Digital Information, vol. 10, n° 1, 1-42.Featured image source: Vanessa Lynn, "Collection", 2010, Flickr.  NonCommercial NonDeriv Creative Commons Licence. 