This paper examines folk theories of algorithmic recommendations on Spotify in order to make visible the cultural specificities of data assemblages in the global South. The study was conducted in Costa Rica and draws on triangulated data from 30 interviews, 4 focus groups with 22 users, and the study of “rich pictures” made by individuals to graphically represent their understanding of algorithmic recommendations. We found two main folk theories: one that personifies Spotify (and conceives of it as a social being that provides recommendations thanks to surveillance) and another one that envisions it as a system full of resources (and a computational machine that offers an individualized musical experience through the appropriate kind of “training”). Whereas the first theory emphasizes local conceptions of social relations to make sense of algorithms, the second one stresses the role of algorithms in providing a global experience of music and technology. We analyze why people espouse either one of these theories (or both) and how these theories provide users with resources to enact different modalities of power and resistance in relation to recommendation algorithms. We argue that folk theories thus offer a productive way to broaden understanding of what agency means in relation to algorithms.

Gabriela" is a 21-year-old sound engineer based in San José, Costa Rica. Music occupies a good part of her day, both for professional and personal reasons. In 2014, she created her own account on Spotify. Although she also uses a wide range of social media platforms, Spotify is, by her own admission, the only app that she is willing to pay for. During an interview we conducted for this project, "Gabriela" was hard pressed to find something she did not like about the platform. She discussed extensively what made the service so appealing to her. The following quote summarizes what she mainly uses Spotify for: I made a playlist that was called "Nostalgic Jams," which is a playlist that is simply like nostalgic vibes. I made a little cover for it and it is a playlist similar to R&B [rhythm and blues], but slow and nostalgic. For me, that's like a genre or subgenre that I have to conceptualize, which I named and made public. "Gabriela's" comments provide us with an opportunity to present four issues discussed in this article. First, we elaborate on how music "is a cultural form that has strong connections to emotions, feelings, and moods: the domain of affect" (Hesmondhalgh, 2013, p. 11). Specifically, this article discusses how users turn to Spotify as a means to cultivate moods and emotions. The notion of cultivation stresses the dynamic and ritual work involved in producing, capturing, and exploring moods and emotions. It is also meant to stress how music and affect mutually constitute each other (DeNora, 2000). Second, "Gabriela" reveals the centrality of playlists in how users experience music streaming services nowadays. On its support website, Spotify (2019) promotes playlists as "collection[s] of music. You can make them for yourself, you can share them, and you can enjoy the millions of other playlists created by Spotify, artists, and fans." Dias, Gonçalves, and Fonseca (2017) define playlists as "ordered sequence[s] of songs meant to be listened to as a group" (p. 14379). We show that creating playlists requires a set of practices and technologies to materialize affect into an artifact and thus cultivate moods and emotions (Orlikowski, 2007).

This paper examines recent transformations in music industries associated with platformization by privileging the perspectives, experiences, and voices of artists. We draw on in-depth interviews with 41 musicians based in two Latin American countries: Costa Rica and Mexico. We analyze how artists perceive the "power" and limitations of playlists, how they think playlists are transforming music industries, and how they associate various forms of pressure with this process. We then show that artists' perceptions about these issues are not uniform but rather variable by discussing three logics that shape the meaning they attribute to Spotify and playlists: dominant, oppositional, and negotiated. Finally, the paper explains the factors that account for why musicians in these countries espouse these logics in different ways. The conclusion argues for considering platformization as more than a purely technological process that needs to be situated within the wider national histories and cultural configurations of the music industries.

Resumen: Los Centros Infantiles Universitarios de la Universidad de Costa Rica (CIUS) son proyectos de la Vicerrectoría de Acción Social y conforman el Programa Institucional de Atención Integral Universitaria para niñas y niños menores de seis años que articula las acciones de cinco centros desde un consejo interdisciplinar. Su objetivo es reflexionar y brindar una atención integral a la niñez de la que se encarga con un enfoque de derechos, es decir, un ejercicio de la docencia guiado por las necesidades de los preescolares y un acompañamiento de la niñez con fundamento en el marco legislativo nacional que garantiza el cumplimiento y la protección de los derechos de las personas menores de edad en Costa Rica. El presente trabajo es producto de la sistematización de las experiencias desarrolladas desde hace más de 40 años en los procesos de adaptación de la primera infancia  (desde los 8 meses hasta los 5 años) y sus familias los cuales presentan similitudes y diferencias que permiten constituirse en ejemplo de la manera en que los CIUS, a partir del ejercicio de los derechos, aporta al el desarrollo de nuevas ciudadanías.