Paradox and Possibility

The history of youth and media culture can be examined by tracing the relationships between the production, representation, circulation, and consumption of media, technology, and cultural texts aimed at youth markets and audiences. The historical development of youth relates to larger socioeconomic, cultural, and political conditions, including the role of mass reproduction and changes in the conditions of distance that shape youth lives. Youth and mass media first melded together in the West, owing to developments in the United States and the United Kingdom. The histories of media and youth culture in other countries, however, capture differences in youth media relationships. In the contemporary period, the use of YouTube in the West and WeChat in China illuminates the globalization of youth cultures and the ongoing role of a central paradox integral to young people’s entanglements with media around the world: the key media structures that shape and contour youth lives are also the very sites where youth continue to navigate authentic meaning and experience and imagine their own futures.

Celebrating Holidays and Instilling Values

Religion is not often a subtopic in historical studies on youth culture in the twentieth century. This is because scholars often stress the retreat of religion in the face of global secularization. However, religion permeated through youth culture during the modern age in both overt and subtle ways. A focus on youth organizations—specifically in the so-called “sectarian society” of Lebanon and others like it in the Global South—and the sources they left behind work to prove this contention. Religion, nation, and masculine uprightness were inseparable and equal parts of youth culture in the twentieth century. This can be seen by exploring two fields in the historical construction of youth: religious holidays and values. Whether in practice or morals, religious doctrine was not central to youth organization in pluralistic societies during this period. Yet, religious identity served as the basis for group structure, discipline, and youth experience.

Youth Culture on Screens Big and Small

Motion pictures and television have shaped youth identity while also evoking anxiety from adults concerned about the influence of this media on the young. Within different media systems, this phenomenon has had different trajectories, which becomes clear in a comparison of the United States and Scandanavia. In both regions, adults’ anxiety about the influence of films on the young was a dominant issue from the birth of the medium, accompanied by recurrent discussions of censorship and age classifications. After the Second World War, and particularly the 1960s, commercialized youth media in America attempted to directly appeal to youth, often through fantasy and romance. By contrast, publicly funded agencies in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe invited young people to influence how television and film could be used to advance their own agendas and aesthetics. With the expansion of the World Wide Web, youth were able to come together from all over the world to discuss and celebrate their favorite television series on dedicated fan pages and social media.