Recommender systems shape music listening worldwide due to their widespread adoption on online platforms. Growing concerns about representational harms that these systems may cause are increasingly part of the scientific and public debate, wherein music listener perspectives are oftentimes reported and discussed, but rarely contextualised through a psychosocial and cultural lens. We address this gap by interviewing a group of Italian music listeners and analysing their narratives through Emotional Textual Analysis. Our findings reveal that listeners often engage with platforms in routinized ways, yet lack a critical understanding of how recommender systems operate and experience a sense of detachment from algorithmic processes. Moreover, while listeners perceive cultural and linguistic distinctions in music, their awareness of gender-related representational issues remains relatively limited. Overall, results underscore the importance of integrating psychosocial insights with technical approaches in the design of trustworthy and culturally sensitive music recommender systems.

翻译：推荐系统因其在在线平台上的广泛应用，正深刻塑造着全球音乐收听方式。关于这些系统可能造成的代表性危害日益成为科学和公共讨论的焦点，其中音乐听众的观点虽常被提及和讨论，却鲜少通过社会心理与文化的视角进行情境化阐释。为填补这一空白，本研究通过访谈一组意大利音乐听众，并运用情感文本分析法对其叙述进行解析。研究发现，听众虽常以程式化方式使用平台，却普遍缺乏对推荐系统运作机制的批判性认知，并对算法过程产生疏离感。此外，尽管听众能感知音乐中的文化与语言差异，其对性别相关代表性问题的认知仍相对有限。总体而言，研究结果强调，在设计可信赖且具文化敏感性的音乐推荐系统时，必须将社会心理洞察与技术方法相结合。