NCJ Number
209242
Journal
Youth & Society Volume: 36 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2005 Pages: 276-311
Date Published
March 2005
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This article critiques recent research focusing on the online Internet activities and identities of youth subcultures and presents a comparison of two Canadian youth subcultures that differ in their use of the Internet.
Abstract
The rise of the Internet, especially over the past 10 years, has resulted in attention to how the Internet impacts youth subcultural coalescence, display, identity, and resistance. Recent research attempts to document and theorize about “millennial youth subcultures” has tended to narrowly focus on the online identity negotiations and activities of Internet youth subcultures, ignoring their offline or “real” subcultural aspects. The authors review and critique this work in an effort to show how existing research that emphasizes either the online or offline experiences of youth subcultures fails to consider the ways that subcultural expressions can be continuous, seamlessly transitioning between the so-called “virtual-real” divide. The authors focus on the intricacies of the relationship between youth subcultures and the media, especially since the widespread emergence of the Internet as a communication platform. The authors also examine the complexities of offline subcultural communities that are influenced by online participation. The analysis focuses on a comparison of two youth subcultures in Canada that can be characterized by their range of media and technology-oriented perspectives, experiences, and practices: Rave and Straightedge. After exploring the online and offline realities of these two subcultures, the authors argue that the research and theoretical divide between the virtual and real in current cyberculture research does not accurately embody the experiences or identities of subcultural youth. References