Youngsters, cultural consumptions and new technologies Torino, Sept. 2010
Learning to live, learning to listen reflections about the Observatories’ papers The papers written by the Cultural Observatories and the researchers highlight the need to re-think the methods to use for understanding the changing cultural consumptions and practices of the young generations, in the evermutating environment defined by new technologies. While the more technical aspects of methodology remain a matter of concern of the researchers, we would like to share with you (via this blog and during the discussion in Torino) a few key-points. 1.
Youth as the age of projects and decisions, and
the presence of new technologies Youth is not a social category, like those defined by occupation or gender. Contrary to a widespread assumption, it is not an “identity�. It is
a period of life, during which
people take decisions and make choices shaping their future. Do (and if so, how) new technologies influence such choices and the attitudes of young people towards their future? Do the new technologies and the Web produce forms of alternative thinking that may influence the way in which youngsters
project
their
future
life?
Is
the
growing
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Youngsters, cultural consumptions and new technologies Torino, Sept. 2010 possibility of generating one's own contents a frustration or an impulse to develop one’s potentials? For instance, if our home-made video posted on Youtube receives positive feedbacks by the Net, is this a mere element of selfgratification, or does it orient our attitudes toward possible careers? More in general, after a period in which personal culture has been considered as a treasure to accumulate in the early part of life and to “spend” later on, have we entered an era in which culture is essentially a shared resource for all stages of life? And how does this condition cultural
production
and
consumption
by
the
young
generations?
2. New technologies create a new ecosystem with new inhabitants, new “types” New technologies have favoured the birth of a new and rapidly changing environment where people, in order both to learn and to adapt themselves to the environment and the environment to themselves, continuously explore new paths following a “trial-and-error” logic in all kinds of practices, including cultural and social/networking practices. In such a new, unsteady and complex scenario, standard “categories” of users, that presume long-term identities and clear-cut correspondences between demographic categories
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Youngsters, cultural consumptions and new technologies Torino, Sept. 2010 and personal behaviours, do not work as they did before. It seems better to define “types”, clusters of users sharing similar logics, practices and interests: e.g. the player, the textual, the worker etc.. This is not to say that “traditional” variables are non influential: they condition the worldview and the resources every individual or group takes with him/herself in the new environment. For instance, age and lifecycle (e.g. being a single or a couple with a small child) seem to influence cultural practices (habits, consumptions) also in the new technologies era.
3. New media and new technologies have an essential gathering value Besides generating “individual” practices, new media and technologies have an outstanding role in gathering people around common interests; while physical proximity was at the origin of the “traditional” groups, virtual groups are centred around common issues (be they ideology, political ideas, socio-environmental concerns, favourite movie stars, sports, leisure activities...). Gathering is often a result of the use of media generated for different aims (e.g. “strolling” around Youtube I will meet people sharing some interests with me and might gather with them in a discussion about a video). On the other hand activities
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Youngsters, cultural consumptions and new technologies Torino, Sept. 2010 which will find their obvious outcome in the web may be the basis for cooperative actions among friends. Which relationships do “real” associations create with “virtual” gathering places? And how do “virtual” groupings react to “concrete” forms of relations?
4. The concept of “belonging” is questioned by new technologies (and the practices they generate) “Multiple belongings” are a matter of fact; nobody is defined by a single “identity”. Even though this has always been the case and the representation of society as a sum of rigidly defined identities has always been simplistic, now multiple belongings are fostered and pinpointed at the same time by new media and new technologies. This has to do with the concept of exposure, declined in two ways: (a) one’s exposure to new contents (see “types” issue above: which kind of contents one explores, which consumptions and practices one carries out, etc.) and (b) one’s exposure to other selves (the presentation of one – specific – self to the others, e.g. via Facebook, Linkedin, etc.); this has also to do with the “cult” system, in which we let cultural products circulate not on the basis of their real or perceived value,
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Youngsters, cultural consumptions and new technologies Torino, Sept. 2010 but on the basis of how we feel represented by them and we consider them a possible basis for inter-relation
As a conclusive statement of this document and an invitation to discussion: as researchers, we feel the need to
put
aside
the
current
tendency
to
judge
new
behaviours even before they are completely formed in terms of “value” (good and bad, “educative” or not, “cultural” or not...) and to adopt an open approach based not on classifying but on listening. That is why we
need to hear from YOU!
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