Show me your playlist and I tell you who you are

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Psychology - Social Psychology grade: 10 Uppsala University language: English abstract: In the age of social networking and music streaming playlists are a common tool for organizing sharing or exchanging music in the digital realm. Most research however emphasizes mainly political legal and ethical constraints of music sharing practices yet neglects their social impact.Thus this paper investigates the social-psychological foundation of the playlist and analyses its functionality in establishing social relations and communication. Following the theories of Cooley Mead Simmel and Solomon I conducted and analysed interviews with young Swedish men and women in which they talked about their experiences and attitudes towards playlists. Moreover all participants compiled their own personal playlist based on certain personality traits which were aimed to be recognized by the others during the focus group discussion. The analysis of the data yields the following conclusions: The playlist is a social object facilitating new forms of communication. The social nature of the playlist is based on the transformation from objective- into subjective culture. By internalizing new technologies such as the playlist objects gain social value thus mere musical content becomes a social form. It is through sharing and exchanging musical compilations that the playlist as a social form serves as a vehicle or medium facilitating new forms of sociation and communication. The communicative function of the playlist is due to its construction through emotions as uniquely subjective judgements based on the I as an emotional self-feeling. Thus musical compilations take part in the self-construction process and can serve as a tool for the symbolic expression of the self.Moreover the analysis points out that there are differences in how well certain parts of the self can be communicated by a playlist. Emotional expr