Streaming: Where It Comes From

The chapter introduces the historical evolution of digital music by adopting a perspective rooted in media history and science and technology studies, outlining how the emergence and the appropriation of music digital tools and infrastructures is historically rooted in wider social and cultural phenomena. We begin by tracing the social history of music digitization over the past half century. Starting from the earliest forms of sound digitization in the 1970s, we will look at different stages that characterized the evolution of digital music, including the arrival of the compact disc, the emergence of the MP3 standard and the iPod, and the first forms of online streaming, initially adopted by radio amateurs. This historical perspective makes it clear that the digital platforms that have become so popular in recent years did not suddenly spring out of some conjurer’s hat but instead constitute the latest step in a long evolution of digital tools for music circulation and listening. We will review the case histories of the MP3 and the evolution of the streaming technologies to illustrate our perspective.