Summary Youth Culture in a Digital world
Lecture 1
Culture: A groups distinctive way of life, including its beliefs and values, its customs and its art and
technologies (this can be geographical, social and temporal)
Youth culture:
Shared beliefs, behaviors, practices and values of young people within a particular society and
or subculture
The ways in which young individuals express themselves, interact with one another, and
distinguish themselves from older generations
It is dynamic and can vary significantly across time and place, reflecting the cultural, social
and historical context in which it emerges.
Key aspects of youth culture can be:
Fashion and style
Music and language
Social activities
Values and ideas
Media and technologie
Social information processing (SIP) theory:
Social media is not just disrupting or enriching our lives, it depends on the receiver and how they
process information.
How you social media (SM):
Replacement or addiction
Passively or actively
Why you use SM
Uses and Gratifications Theory (Lasswell, 1948)
What purposes or functions does media offer for active receivers?
o (1) surveillance of the environment
o (2) affective need
o (3) cultural transmission
o (4) entertainment
,Sheldon et al (2017 Uses and gratifications theory): Self-promotion, maintaining existing
relationships, need for creativity, escapism and expressing opinions:
Information
Social
Entertainment
Convenience and pass of the time
Approaches in youth development
Adolescence:
Early (10-13)
Middle (14-17)
Late (18-24)
Youth development:
( 1 ) Developmental task approach
The basic idea: hierarchic list of tasks, met through biological or social development
Erikson’s developmental stages (1958):
According research: key development tasks of adolescence (13-18 years old):
Learning to build intimate and committed friendships/relationships
Adjustment to pubertal changes
Transition to secondary schooling
Developing strong and coherent personal identity
Media effect: effects depends on the age of the user!
Scary media content and trauma
Perceptual stage (2-7 years) looking scary
Conceptual stage (7+ years) being real
Adolescents and celebrities
Parents are example (<12)
Influencers are example (>12)
, ( 2 ) Risk and resilience approach:
The basic idea: risk- and protective factors explain differences between people cumulative risk
model. Applications (Krake et al, 2017): snowball effect, turn around models. This model you can use
to systematically assess the risk and protective factors.
Micro: how do parents monitor and regulate their children’s Media use?
Exo: is school offering classes on online safety and SM policies?
Macro: what do we believe and value regarding SM?
Identity development during adolescence
The basic idea (Moshman, 2005) is that an identity is at least in a part, an explicit theory of oneself as
a person. Identity dimensions are:
Personal
Social: gender, ethnic and national
Online identity
Key components are:
Self-image: how young people perceive themselves
Self-esteem: the ability to appreciate this self-image
Identity: should be constructed during adolescence through exploration online and offline. There can
be a discrepancy between the virtual identity/online versus the actual identity
Lecture 1
Culture: A groups distinctive way of life, including its beliefs and values, its customs and its art and
technologies (this can be geographical, social and temporal)
Youth culture:
Shared beliefs, behaviors, practices and values of young people within a particular society and
or subculture
The ways in which young individuals express themselves, interact with one another, and
distinguish themselves from older generations
It is dynamic and can vary significantly across time and place, reflecting the cultural, social
and historical context in which it emerges.
Key aspects of youth culture can be:
Fashion and style
Music and language
Social activities
Values and ideas
Media and technologie
Social information processing (SIP) theory:
Social media is not just disrupting or enriching our lives, it depends on the receiver and how they
process information.
How you social media (SM):
Replacement or addiction
Passively or actively
Why you use SM
Uses and Gratifications Theory (Lasswell, 1948)
What purposes or functions does media offer for active receivers?
o (1) surveillance of the environment
o (2) affective need
o (3) cultural transmission
o (4) entertainment
,Sheldon et al (2017 Uses and gratifications theory): Self-promotion, maintaining existing
relationships, need for creativity, escapism and expressing opinions:
Information
Social
Entertainment
Convenience and pass of the time
Approaches in youth development
Adolescence:
Early (10-13)
Middle (14-17)
Late (18-24)
Youth development:
( 1 ) Developmental task approach
The basic idea: hierarchic list of tasks, met through biological or social development
Erikson’s developmental stages (1958):
According research: key development tasks of adolescence (13-18 years old):
Learning to build intimate and committed friendships/relationships
Adjustment to pubertal changes
Transition to secondary schooling
Developing strong and coherent personal identity
Media effect: effects depends on the age of the user!
Scary media content and trauma
Perceptual stage (2-7 years) looking scary
Conceptual stage (7+ years) being real
Adolescents and celebrities
Parents are example (<12)
Influencers are example (>12)
, ( 2 ) Risk and resilience approach:
The basic idea: risk- and protective factors explain differences between people cumulative risk
model. Applications (Krake et al, 2017): snowball effect, turn around models. This model you can use
to systematically assess the risk and protective factors.
Micro: how do parents monitor and regulate their children’s Media use?
Exo: is school offering classes on online safety and SM policies?
Macro: what do we believe and value regarding SM?
Identity development during adolescence
The basic idea (Moshman, 2005) is that an identity is at least in a part, an explicit theory of oneself as
a person. Identity dimensions are:
Personal
Social: gender, ethnic and national
Online identity
Key components are:
Self-image: how young people perceive themselves
Self-esteem: the ability to appreciate this self-image
Identity: should be constructed during adolescence through exploration online and offline. There can
be a discrepancy between the virtual identity/online versus the actual identity
