Giddens 2002 in an online interview stated:
“Information technology is altering many of the ways in which we work and in which we live. The nature of the jobs people do, for example, has been transformed. There are far fewer people working today working making manufactured goods than once was the case. Many such jobs have become automated, as a result of the introduction of information technology.”
There are so many different aspects to youth culture with most of these elements revolving around forms of technology, television, video games, CD players, DVD and the internet. This is how young people today help shape their identity and develop their own sub-culture or at least be part of an already existing one.
Kingston 1999 (The Guardian – 30/3/99) has reported on globalisation in relation to culture, and has suggested that ‘the English language is the other big factor pushing globalisation. Anglo-American culture predominates among the world’s youth. Professor Newby – vice chancellor of Southampton University discusses the massive popularity of MTV, as mentioned there has been more diversity, although all the channels are in English and play mostly UK/USA artists.
Roth 1999 has suggested that ‘culture differences will fade away as people share more media, information and consumptions and participate in similar work environments’. Roth claims that this has turned out to be a problem as opposed to a solution – ‘the promoted universalism’ has somehow strengthened old boundaries and created new ones. However, whatever boundaries are put in place somebody, somewhere will want to get around ore knock them down; in discussing music, ‘Deb’ in Garratt et al (1997:1) discusses experiences of being a young person
“I like too many different types of music to be able to label myself as anything. Other people don’t seem to have much trouble though.”
Who labels people? Do the young people of today, actively dress like a certain way, talk a certain way and act a certain way to be part of a particular sub-culture or do young people wear, say, act how they want and others label them? Youth identity appears to derive from the type of music they like.
‘Deb’ in Garratt (1997:2) continues:
“Cos they’re so many families breaking up that people are looking for artificial tribes now. When you’re at places like festivals there’s so many of ya, and everyone’s alright - it’s like a massive family.”
Is this to suggest therefore, that with the decline of traditional family values and structures that people are actively dressing, saying and doing things a certain way to ‘fit in’ with one group and possibly ‘stand out’ from another – just for a sense of belonging. The question arises however, of which sub-culture group to choose to participate with, there are to many variations within music, the media and on the Internet, surely due to technology the choice is there for everybody.
Wulff (1995:10) argues that:
“When it comes to globalisation or trans-national connections, youth cultures are at the forefront of theoretical interest; youth, their ideas and commodities move easily across national borders, shaping and being shaped by all kinds of structures and meanings. It may concern development and consumerism.”
This sense of belonging, to feel like they fit in can be easily exploited by companies, if their friends have a £70 pair of trainers it isn’t long before they do and this can continue throughout an entire school. If a school with 2000 pupils all want a £70 pair of trainers and 3 quarters get them that’s a total of £105,000 just from one school fashion. This identity waiting to be shaped is a valuable commodity to the trans-national corporations, advertising is just as important. Getting so-called role models to advertise their products to ensure that all young people want them, simply to ‘fit-in’. The pressure on young people today is a problem, especially international, global pressure. Whilst still facing the same problems those past generations have endured, as White (1999:2) suggests “Unemployment, poverty, racism, sexism, heterosexism and inequality.” Using Australian youth as an example, White (1999:3) explains the problems young people face in today’s world:
“Coming to grips with the rapidly changing world – the ‘global society’ – confronted with; shrinking full time labour-markets, advanced communication and information technologies, consumerism as a mass ideology, widespread cynicism about the political process, and public ‘moral panics’ about community safety and social deviance”
As a young person, trying to define and shape your identity can be difficult, with no occupational status and the underlying urge to ‘fit-in’, then a group of people who ‘think the same’ or at least like the same music/films/video games is a good place to start. Today, young people do not have to stay with the people at school or their friends in the street; over the Internet they have the whole world to find a community for themselves.
The interest in music is common amongst young people; “According to the Årsbok omungdom (1991) 94 per cent of all the 16-25 year old respondents stated that they are extremely or quite interested in music – girls equally as much as boys.” (Taken from Fornas and Bolin -1995:98)
Some sub cultures have derived form music, hip-hop culture, started in New York in the 1970s has had a widespread emergence. The origins of hip-hop have often been contested and debated so many times, but the cultural practices within it have remained the same; rapping, scratching, break-dancing, graffiti and of course the clothing. d’Souza and Iveson (1999:56) discuss hip hop emergence in the U.S, graffiti and break-dancing as responses to the ghetto life to when many African-American and Latino young people were restricted. Ali Gripper and Andrew Hornery (1996 – cited in d’Souza and Iveson 1999:56) have written about a clique of young people in a Western suburb in Sydney calling themselves the Fijian Bula Boys (FBB)
“Most of the FBBs identity is borrowed straight from one of the most dominant global youth sub cultures known – the ‘homeboys’ or ‘homies’ based on black American street culture” Gripper and Hornery also state that these ‘homies’ have a ‘headquarters’ at a dingy local pool hall – wearing Nike shoes, baseball caps, sweatshirts and any kind of baggy pants; whilst playing pool, perfecting their graffiti tags, taking drugs and listening to gangsta rap.
A German language rapper (from Frith 2002) explains:
“For a lot of people the commercial side of it, the image, the clothes are more important than the music …they pretend to be ‘gangsta rappers’ from the USA and yet we have enough social problems here to be addressed.”
This can relate to the sense of belonging and identity that young people want to feel. If USA influences are affecting the culture in England, Germany and the Westerns suburbs of Sydney in Australia, then surely all hip hop all over the word is following the American version and copying the original. However, a Geordie rapper (in Frith 2002) claims that he “writes directly about his own experiences of living in Newcastle and performs in a Geordie accent. Hip hop here is valued as an authentic mode of expression that is primarily rooted in the power it gives them to comment on their everyday experiences.” Thus, taking a subculture formed earlier and adapting it to the lifestyles locally, mixing localisms with globalisms.
Massey (1998:121) discusses her interviews with women in Yucatan, Mexico and her experience after the interviews:
“Whilst going towards the jeep, our ears were assaulted by a racket of electronic noise. In a pool of light coming from another building – this one wired for electricity – a dozen or so youngsters were urgently playing computer games. Machines were lined up around the walls of the flimsy shack and everyone was surrounded by players – along with American slang and bits of western music”
According to Rifkin 2001 (The Guardian 3/7/01) incidents of backlash against the cultural globalisation we are witnessing have occurred:
“Local cultures are reawakening everywhere in the world. In India, consumers recently trashed McDonald's restaurants for violating Hindu dietary laws. In Germany, the public is engaged in a heated debate over what is German culture in the era of globalisation. The centre left is worried that any talk of resurrecting a German Leit culture - or guiding culture - will spawn a resurgence of fascist sentiment, but the centre right asks how long Germany can deny its cultural heritage. In France, angry farmers uprooted Monsanto's genetically engineered crops, claiming that they are a threat to French cultural sovereignty over food production. In Canada, local communities are fighting to keep out the giant Wal-Mart chain for fear it will destroy neighbourhood businesses and replace traditional small town culture with suburban super malls.”
Rifkin is not the only one to report the drawbacks of cultural globalisation; Akande (2002) has observed:
“Suddenly, people all over Africa and the rest of the non-Westernised regions of the world, appear to be imbibing materialistic and individualistic values previously associated with Western culture. What explains this apparently abrupt Westernisation? One major reason is the structural change in the world economy: globalisation and the flood of goods dumped in poor countries that are marketed by mass seductive advertising which is blatantly superficial but nonetheless successful in creating fresh desires in peoples of traditional societies. For some, especially the young, these new products and content with new ideas can be exhilarating. Change may mean escape from oppressive traditions. It may also bring new opportunities for cultures to mingle in creative ways. Obviously, it would be an excessive form of cultural fundamentalism to suggest that Africans should try to keep everything exactly as it is, rather than allowing culture to develop. However, there is genuine cause for concern about the rate at which cultures (African and non-African) are being undermined in a world that is bound together by ever-stronger economic ties.”
Giddens 2002 argues that Cultural globalisation is evident in the spread of the English language around the world and in the films and TV programmes that are sometimes seen by hundreds of millions of people in different countries. Politically, the world is more inter-connected than it ever was before: most governments now recognise that there are many decisions which can't be tackled simply on a national level - an example is ecological issues, which truly need to be confronted globally as well as locally.
Massey (1998:122) suggests that the local culture of the Yucatan is a product of interaction. It is certainly not a closed, local culture, but neither is it an ‘undifferentiatedly’ global one. Massey suggests therefore that the young people strive for the right trainers or the right t-shirt with the western logo on the front, but have limitations, thus, find themselves in a ‘hybrid’ culture, in which importation, adoption and adaptation is the way forward, forming cultures that work for the individual, when encountering limitations, follow a crowd or stick with diversity.
Therefore dividing the world into the ‘haves’, ‘have nots’ and ‘have some’. Roth (1999) suggested ‘the idea that cultural differences will fade away as people share more information media has turned out to be problem rather than a solution’ however, the range of mass media being presented world wide usually derives from the western world, the deprived countries watching an episode of friends might not necessarily help to break down barriers between cultures. Nevertheless, with a wide range of information available, the exchange can go from east to west, recently there has been an influx from ‘bollywood’ with films such as ‘East is East’ and the musical ‘Bombay Dreams’. Therefore not necessarily less diversity but more exchange of culture, Roth (1999) argues; “globalisation and localisation cannot be thought of independently of one another. They are obviously two sides of a single coin.”
With the never ending increase in access to technology in the western world our culture is sent all around the rest of the world, over satellites, down telephone lines etc that it would be impossible for other cultures not to be effected.
