ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 considers mobility as a concept, and mobile phones as devices contributing to what online music use is. The smartphone applications for YouTube, VK and Spotify, as well as other means of listening on your mobile phone, are investigated in the light of discourses among participants regarding mobile music use. Taking the starting point in discussions around what mobility is, and how mobile media is reshaping culture and society, the chapter focuses on the mobile phone as a vital technological tool for music streaming. Mobile music listening is a well-researched cultural practice; thus, the continuum of mobility in music consumption is addressed in the chapter. While being in the latter part of the book, concerned with platforms, this chapter draws on material from both parts of the study – the focus groups as well as the platforms – in discussing the importance of mobility in contemporary music practice. By doing so it aims to understand not only the uses of music while mobile, but also how they are shaped by discursive ideas of mobility – mainly imagining mobility and a forward motion as something desirable. The discussions among participants complicate this simple discourse on mobility in contemporary culture, and music’s place in a mobile society.?
