Media infrastructure iteration and the reconfiguration of music’s commodity form: Communicative-institutional change across the evolution of digital platforms

Abstract

The iterative evolution of digital platforms has not only changed the channels through which music circulates but has fundamentally redefined music’s attributes as a commodity. Adopting media infrastructure theory as its analytical lens, this study draws on a longitudinal analysis of 71,931 weekly-chart records from a Mandarin-language music streaming platform between 2005 and 2025, together with semi-structured interviews with 25 music industry practitioners, to examine systematically how the iteration of media infrastructure, from physical records to streaming platforms to short-video platforms, has reconstructed the commodity attributes of music and the institutional arrangements of its communication. The study finds that music’s commodity form has undergone three fundamental reconfigurations: an ownable product in the physical-record period, an accessible service in the streaming period, and appropriable raw material in the short-video period. The chart data provide structural evidence of this process: the top 10% of songs account for 60.8% of all chart appearances, and systematic defects in the platform’s metadata governance indicate that digital platforms are not neutral conduits but actively participate, through their data architectures, in constructing music’s commodity attributes. The paper advances the theoretical proposition of the distribution channel as a commodity-attribute-defining apparatus, arguing that media infrastructure determines not only how music reaches consumers but also what music is.