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What is the Role of Media Technologies in Shaping Generational Identities?

Fri, May 22, 16:30 to 17:45, Caribe Hilton, Conference Room 3/4/5

Abstract

The role of the media in defining the identity of generations is not a kind of technological imprinting, which took place once and for all, as some generational labels may suggest. Instead, it is part of a wider diachronic and cultural process. Following the sociological tradition from Mannheim to our days, “social generations” can be seen as the outcome of both exogenous -or ‘objective’- and endogenous -or ‘subjective’- forces. Among the former there are historical events, material conditions of existence, a certain cultural environment; amongst the latter there are evaluation criteria, narratives, rituals, discursive forms that celebrate the sharing of such experiences as qualifying elements, common to all those who are born in that time. Media and communication technologies participate in this “generational identity building” being -at the same time- part of both exogenous and endogenous forces, and contributing to articulate each other through their contents and discourses.

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