Media is now central to how youth form their identities. Media also shapes the cultural background of much of young people’s action and decision making and the institutional framework of social interaction. This article explores this mediated “lifeworld” of young people by examining rates of current media use and the infiltration of media into conventional forms of socialization such as schools, family, and peers. The authors argue that increasing media use coincides with a larger structural shift to an information-based society wherein social relationships are constituted and reinforced through a cycle of “networked individualism” and growing “risk” among youth. The authors illustrate the cycle of media use, individualization, and risk by briefly examining (a) rising economic insecurity among all Americans and American youth in particular, and (b) the contradictions minority youth face in navigating structural barriers to achievement. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of their work and suggesting policy directions for youth in a media-saturated society.
Bauman, Z. ( 2007). Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
2.
Beck, U. ( 1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage.
3.
Bennett, W.L. ( 2008). Changing citizenship in the digital age. In W. Bennett (Ed.), Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth (pp. 1-24). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
4.
Boase, J., Horrigan, J.B., Wellman, B., & Rainie, L. ( 2006). The strength of Internet ties. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life. Retrieved April 4, 2010, from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2006/PIP_Internet_ties.pdf.pdf
5.
Bonilla-Silva, E. ( 2006). Racism without racists: Colorblind inequality and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
6.
Buckingham, D., Scanlon, M., & Sefton-Green, J. (2001). Selling the digital dream: Marketing educational technology to teachers and parents. In A. Loveless & V. Ellis (Eds.), Subject to change: Literacy and digital technology (pp. 20-40). London: Routledge.
7.
Carter, P.L. ( 2009). Equity and empathy: Toward racial educational achievement in the Obama era. Harvard Educational Review, 79, 287-297.
8.
College Board. (2006). Trends in college pricing: Trends in higher education series. Washington, DC: College Board. Retrieved July 17, 2006, from http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/150634.html .
9.
Draut, T. ( 2006). Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30- somethings can’t get ahead. New York: Random House.
10.
Fischer, C. ( 1992). America calling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11.
Fischer, C.S., & Hout, M. ( 2006). Century of difference: How America changed in the last one hundred years. New York: Russell Sage.
12.
Fischer, C.S., & Mattson, G. ( 2009). Is America fragmenting?Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 435-455.
13.
Giddens, A. ( 1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
14.
Habermas, J. ( 1981). The theory of communicative action: Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason (Vol. 2, T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
15.
Hacker, J.S. ( 2004). Privatizing risk without privatizing the welfare state: The hidden politics of social policy retrenchment in the United States. American Political Science Review, 98, 243-260.
16.
Hargittai, E. ( 2002). Second-level digital divide: Differences in people’s online skills. Available from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/
17.
Hargittai, E., & Hinnant, A. ( 2008). Digital inequality: Differences in young adults’ use of the Internet. Communication Research, 35, 602-621.
18.
Henry, C.P. ( 2008). Is Barack Obama the end of white politics? The Black Scholar, 38(4), 6-10.
19.
Kellner, D. ( 2002). New media and new literacies: Reconstructing education for the new millennium. In L. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (Eds.), The handbook of new media (pp. 90-104). London: Sage.
20.
Krysan, M., & Bader, M. ( 2007). Perceiving the metropolis: Seeing the city through a prism of race. Social Forces, 86, 699-733.
21.
Krippner, G.R. ( 2005). The financialization of theAmerican economy. Socio-Economic Review, 3, 173-208.
22.
Lenhart, A. ( 2009). Teens and sexting: How and why minor teens are sending sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images via text messaging. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project .
23.
Lessig, L. ( 1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.
24.
Levine, P. ( 2007). The future of democracy: Developing the next generation of American citizens. Medford, MA: Tufts University Press.
25.
Livingstone, S. ( 2001). Children on-line: Emerging uses of the Internet at home . Journal of the IBTE, 2, 1-7.
26.
Livingstone, S. ( 2003). Children’s use of the Internet: Reflections on the emerging research agenda. New Media & Society, 5, 147-166.
27.
Logan, J.R., Stults, B.J., & Farley, R. ( 2004). Segregation of minorities in the metropolis: Two decades of change. Demography, 41, 1-22.
28.
Madden, M. ( 2006). Internet penetration and impact. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project .
29.
Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C.J., & Standsbury, M. (2003). Virtual inequality: Beyond the digital divide. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
30.
Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. ( 2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583.
31.
Powell, W.W., & Snellman, K. ( 2004). The knowledge economy. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 199-220.
32.
Rideout, V.J., Foehr, U.G., & Roberts, D.F. ( 2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds . Menlo Park, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
33.
Rosa, H., & Scheuerman, W.E. (2009). High-speed society: Social acceleration, power, and modernity. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University.
34.
Schneider, B., & Stevenson, D. ( 1999). The ambitious generation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
35.
Schutz, A. ( 1972). The phenomenology of the social world. London: Heinemann Educational.
36.
Shah, D.V., McLeod, J.M., & Yoon, S.H. ( 2001). Communication, context, and community-An exploration of print, broadcast, and Internet influences. Communication Research, 28, 464-506.
37.
Sinclair-Chapman, V., & Price, M. ( 2008). Black politics, the 2008 election, and the (im)possibility of race transcendence. Political Science & Politics, 41, 739-745.
38.
Thomas, A. ( 2007). Youth online: Identity and literacy in the digital age . New York: Peter Lang.
39.
Wellman, B. ( 2002). Little boxes, globalization and networked individualism . In M. Tanabe, P. Besselaar, & T. Ishida (Eds.), Digital cities II: Computational and sociological approaches (pp. 11-25). New York/Berlin: Springer-Verlag .
40.
Wellman, B. ( 2001). Physical place and cyber place: The rise of networked individualism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25, 227-252.
41.
Zhao, S. ( 2006). The Internet and the transformation of the reality of everyday life: Toward a new analytic stance in sociology. Sociological Inquiry, 76, 458-474.
42.
Zukin, C., Keeter, S., Andolina, M., Jenkins, K., & Delli Carpini, M.X. (2006). A new engagement? Political participation, civic life, and the changing American citizen. New York: Oxford University Press.
