Faculty of Humanities and Social Science

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 expressions of the self are translated into particular universal music patterns most successfully. Furthermore, the analysis shows that some people like to browse through the playlists of others and judge them thereupon, which results in some type of musical voyeurism, termed “playlistism.” In conclusion, I argue that the musical playlist is both, socially implicated and socially implicating, and facilitates communication not only between Swedish youth but across cultural boarders.

With the move to a market-oriented economy, the growth of large scale internal migration has created new forces for institutional change in China. By 2010, 260 million citizens were living outside of their permanent hukou (household registration) location, a major challenge to the constrictive Mao-era system of migration and settlement planning and the rigid intuitional division of rural and urban China. Jason Young shows how these new forces have been received by the state through analysis of major hukou reforms. He documents the dynamic process of institutional change and explains the ongoing importance of China's enduring hukou system to socioeconomic and political development in the world's largest developing country.

Taiwan businesses and policymakers recognise the importance of actively participating in regional economic integration agreements in the Asia-Pacific to avoid marginalisation from the emerging economic community. This has been a challenge due to Taiwan’s position in the inter- national system and Beijing’s opposition to Taipei negotiating state-to-state agreements. The signing of the economic cooperation agreement with New Zealand (Agreement between New Zealand and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on Economic Cooperation, July 2013) and the economic partnership agreement with Singapore (Agreement between Singapore and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on Economic Partnership, November 2013) shows that an alternative pathway for participating in regional economic integration is possible. Based on extensive interviews in Taipei, the article identifies a framework for this pathway with three enablers and constraints: first, the use of the World Trade Organization nomenclature (Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu); second, improved cross-strait relations and the signing of the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (2010); and, third, growth in the number of countries with existing preferential economic agreements and good relations with the People’s Republic of China. This framework is discussed as one of four possible pathways to greater participation in regional integration with reference to potential trade agreements in the region and Beijing’s one China policy.