Platform Jazz

At first glance, jazz and TikTok may not seem like an obvious match: Spontaneous ensemble interaction, long improvisations, and complex harmonies on a short-form video platform? Still, jazz is highly popular on TikTok, although only very specific facets of jazz culture achieve high visibility on the platform. Based on interviews with popular content creators, Benjamin Burkhart reveals that the specific representation of jazz on TikTok is highly dependent on the socio-technical interaction between the platform’s affordances and the musicians’ algorithmic imaginaries.