Adolescent Identity Construction and Communication Through Music Consumption in Virtual Space

Music consumption in the digital era has turned into “ownership” through digital music collections presented by various streaming music services. Streaming music services, such as Spotify, are services that primarily focus on the experience of listening to music by presenting a large collection of music from various musicians and genres to its users. Consumption by individuals can be interpreted as a behavior that defines identity and self-expression. Young people's music consumption provides them with a medium to construct, negotiate and modify their identities; presenting them with a set of strategies to know themselves and to relate to others. The purpose of this study is to explore and describe adolescents' experiences of using new media that give meaning to their identities and music-related communication in virtual spaces. The method used is qualitative research with a phenomenological approach. The object of this research is teenagers who consume the Spotify application continuously.