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Streaming Platforms, Filter Bubbles, and Cultural Inequalities. How Online Services Increase Consumption Diversity

By on September 4, 2025 in Articles

Samuel Coavoux, Abel Aussant

Sociological Science September 4, 2025
10.15195/v12.a24

Abstract

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Do digital technologies affect diversity in cultural tastes? Digital sociologists have warned of “filter bubbles,” whereas sociologists of culture have shown that diversity in consumption is valued as a marker of upper-middle-class status. We estimate the effect of using streaming platforms on the diversity of cultural consumption using a matching technique applied to 2018 survey data from France. We find a statistically significant positive effect of using streaming platforms on the diversity of cultural consumption as well as on cosmopolitanism, on three domains, music, movies, and TV shows. The magnitude of this effect is much higher for TV shows. The study brings new evidence against the filter bubble thesis; it shows that platforms do reinforce cultural inequalities by increasing the social gap in consumption diversity. It further suggests that the effect of technology on cultural consumption might mainly operate through its impact on cultural markets rather than changes in cultural experience.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Samuel Coavoux: CREST, ENSAE, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Paris, France. E-mail: samuel.coavoux@ensae.fr.
Abel Aussant: Sciences Po, CRIS, Paris, France. E-mail: abel.aussant@sciencespo.fr.

Acknowledgments: This article benefited greatly from comments by Quentin Mazel, Patrick Präg, Léa Pessin, and anonymous reviewers, as well as from the audiences of AFS 2023, ESA-RN05 Midterm 2023, ECSR 2023, Culture in a digital context conferences, and the CREST sociology seminar.

Supplemental Materials

Reproducibility Package: A replication package containing all scripts necessary to reproduce the results presented in the article is available at OSF. The data are available on demand from the Progedo-Adisp repository.

  • Citation: Coavoux, Samuel and Abel Aussant. 2025. “Streaming Platforms, Filter Bubbles, and Cultural Inequalities. How Online Services Increase Consumption Diversity” Sociological Science 12: 572-600.
  • Received: May 29, 2025
  • Accepted: July 6, 2025
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Bart Bonikowski
  • DOI: 10.15195/v12.a24

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Genres, Objects, and the Contemporary Expression of Higher-Status Tastes

By on July 14, 2021 in Articles

Clayton Childress, Shyon Baumann, Craig M. Rawlings, Jean-François Nault

Sociological Science July 14, 2021
10.15195/v8.a12

Abstract

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Are contemporary higher-status tastes inclusive, exclusive, or both? Recent work suggests that the answer likely is both. And yet, little is known concerning how configurations of such tastes are learned, upheld, and expressed without contradiction. We resolve this puzzle by showing the affordances of different levels of culture (i.e., genres and objects) in the expression of tastes. We rely on original survey data to show that people of higher status taste differently at different levels of culture: more inclusively for genres and more exclusively for objects. Inclusivity at the level of genres is fostered through familial socialization, and exclusivity at the level of objects is fostered through formal schooling. Individuals’ taste configurations are mirrored in and presumably reinforce their adult social-structural positions. The results have important implications for understanding the subtle maintenance of status in an increasingly diverse and putatively meritocratic society.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Clayton Childress: Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
E-mail: clayton.childress@utoronto.ca

Shyon Baumann: Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
E-mail: shyon.baumann@utoronto.ca

Craig M. Rawlings: Department of Sociology, Duke University
E-mail: craig.rawlings@duke.edu

Jean-François Nault: Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
E-mail: jf.nault@mail.utoronto.ca

Acknowledgments: All authors contributed equally to this work. Prior versions of this article were presented at the Toronto TheoryWorkshop and at the Sociology of Culture panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. We are grateful to attendees and fellow presenters in both of these venues for their trenchant feedback and comments. In particular, we also thank Jordan Foster, Jennifer Lena, Ann Mullen, Dan Silver, and Omar Lizardo for their time and attention in improving this work. The G7 workshop, per usual, also substantially contributed to the improvement of this work. All mistakes are our own. Direct correspondence to Craig M. Rawlings, Duke University Sociology Department, Reuben-Cooke Building Rm. 270, Durham, NC 27708; craig.rawlings@duke.edu.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Childress, Clayton, Shyon Baumann, Craig M. Rawlings, and Jean-François Nault. 2021. “Genres, Objects, and the Contemporary Expression of Higher-Status Tastes.” Sociological Science 8: 230-264.
  • Received: January 9, 2021
  • Accepted: February 4, 2021
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossmann
  • DOI: 10.15195/v8.a12


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