Moving Forward: A Feminist Analysis of Mobile Music Streaming

• Main Author: Ann Werner
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linköping University Electronic Press 2015-06-01
• Series: Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research
• Subjects: Apps; music; mobile phones; gender; space; emotions
• Online Access: https://journal.ep.liu.se/test3212/index.php/CU/article/view/2156

The importance of understanding gender, space and mobility as co-constructed in public space has been emphasized by feminist researchers (Massey 2005, Hanson 2010). And within feminist theory materiality, affect and emotions has been described as central for experienced subjectivity (Ahmed 2012). Music listening while moving through public space has previously been studied as a way of creating a private auditory bubble for the individual (Bull 2000, Cahir & Werner 2013) and in this article feminist theory on emotion (Ahmed 2010) and space (Massey 2005) is employed in order to understand mobile music streaming. More specifically it discusses what can happen when mobile media technology is used to listen to music in public space and investigates interconnectedness of bodies, music, technology and space. The article is based on autoethnographic material of mobile music streaming in public and concludes that a forward movement shaped by happiness is a desired result of mobile music streaming. The valuing of ‘forward’ is critically examined from the point of feminist theory and the failed music listening moments are also discussed in terms of emotion and space.