The role played by new media in defining generational we-sense

Fausto ColomboOssCom - Research Center On Media and Communication

Catholic University of MilanItaly

Which is the relevance of generational paradigm in this context?

• The topic is nowdays at the center of the debate on the new media since the start of the digitilization (see the debate about the Internet Generation, or, just in the last few years, on the so called people of Digital Natives)

Actually…

• The theoretical concept of “Generation” belong to a very classical tradition of sociological paradigms (i.e. Mannheim),

• … and the debate is also now very interesting– on one hand in the social sciences (Corsten,

Turner…)– on the other hand in other close disciplines

(History, Demography, Marketing…)

My approach as a social researcher: a tradition of a school (Osscom)

• A set of 5 years long field researches, finally merged in a National Research Project, about the relation between media and generations:

• 2 years project financed by Italian Ministry of University involving 5 different national universities

• 68 biographical interviews• 73 focus groups• 12 couple interviews

A series of researches

• Dopoguerra (Postwars): born 1940-1952; formative years during the Fifties / mid Sixties

• Boomers: born 1953-1965; formative years during the last Sixties / Seventies

• Neos: born 1966-1978; formative years during the Eighties / first Nineties

• Posts: born 1979-1991; formative years during the Nineties / first years of the new millennium.

The background: four (italian) generations:

• International congresses – Generations and Broadband Society, Copenhagen May

2009, panel of the congress….. Cost Action…..– Media+Generations, held in Milan, 11-12 september 2009:

http://mediageneration.wordpress.com/program/

• Publications: – 2 books (edited with Piermarco Aroldi: italian)– 4 articles on international publications (journals and

books: english)– Media+Generations, Summary Report, V&P, Milan, 2009

(english and italian)

and a personal history…

A –many –years-long qualitative research (more than 200 subject contacted for in depht interview or focus) about the generation of baby boomers in Italy, published in a non-academic book as a collective autobiography

Which disciplines?

• Marketing: generation as a target• Strong identity (Baby Boomers) • Weak identity (X Generation) • Deterministic Identity (Net generation, Nintendo

Generation, Digital Natives and so on)• Sociology: generation as a social identity (overall

in political action)• History: generation as historical subject of change• Others: (education sciences: generation as a

collective receiver of a tradition…)

“An age cohort that comes to have social significance by virtue of constituting itself as a cultural identity” (Edmunds & Turner).

People who belong to the same generation:• were born in the same period of time• have the same age• share a common world of past, formative, (sometime

traumatic) experiences• are nowadays in the same life-cycle position• share a particular “generational semantic”• share a generational “we sense”• share a sort of “habitus”.

Generations in the sociological tradition(Mannheim, Bourdieu; Corsten, Edmunds & Turner)

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What generations are not?

• Time-boxes containing groups of people (25 or less years-long boxes, for the old demographic tradition) builded by chance

• Simple forms of elective belonging (I can’t choose in total freedom my generational belonging: I can’t choose my date of birth…)

• Social deterministic machines for building collective identities between co-agers (sometimes people choose between two possible elective generations)

What Generations are?

Like many social facts, they are, first of all, what we can observe about them…

• In order of social continuum– Regularity (there is a series of generations… one

following the other)– Contrast (some generations are more protagonist in

social arena)• In order of the perspective of observation

– From outside– From inside

In order of social continuum

Like a wave

• A = In deep water.• B = In shallow water. The

elliptical movement of a surface particle becomes flatter with decreasing depth.

• 1 = Progression of wave• 2 = Crest• 3 = Trough

Regularity

• Diversity between different generations

• Identity (family, or nation)

• Cohabitation (they live together, or in the same time)

and for what media are concerned…

Is it still the same in the era of digital television?

Contrast

Dimension

Effects

The generational wave of the 68

• Dimension: global (in the pictures: Berkeley, Paris, Mexixo City, Prague, Rome…)

• Effects: politically, culturally very relevant

Something more about dimension of generations…

• The number of people composing a generation is not useless in determining the generational strenght in a society

• But this variable is not sufficient in determine social effects

• See the examples of the Baby Boomers in Italy

and for what new generations are concerned…

Dimension: a global generation? In which sense? Where the action come from?

Effects: which ones? Which are the changes?

In order of the perspective of observation

From outside perspective• Events

– Global (Fall of the Berlin Wall, ’89; 9/11/2001)– Glocal (Moonlanding, ‘69)– Local (Vermicino, Italia, ‘81)

• The role played by media in allowing the access to the event (but also to interpretate the event, enphasize it before, memorize or create a sort of nostalgia, after).

Global, Local, Glocal

From outside perspective (1)• Everyday Life

– Tradition– Soft culture– Public and private environment

• The role of the media– Artifacts, as a domestic landscape– Cultural role (rituals, cultural forms, contents…)

BB generation…

Other generational media tools

Some generational confusion?

From outside perspective (2)• Social definitions

– sterotypes from old generations – stereotypes from media (like a lot of the marketing

definitions, or typical generational contents)

• Social context – Welfare crisis: guaranteed and non guaranteed

generations

• Institutional changes– Transformation and innovation driven by institutions

(like DTT) or by the market (transformation of the standards): digital immigrants vs digital natives?

From inside perspective (1)• Collective self identification

My experience with the Baby Boomers

• Self narration Production/selection of generational texts as expressive of a generational identity (think global about Twilight Saga, and local about Moccia’s books in Italy)

From inside perspective (2)

• SharingExperiences, life seasons, contents

• Symbolic identificationAre there some symbolic characters for the generation? (or media propose some of them?)

Generation: complexity of a sociological concept

• Three reasons why being careful in defining generations by media tools:– Because media role is very complex in

interaction with generations– Because generations are different– Because different generations are always

interacting between them

… and

• a reason why being careful in defining new generations– Because new generations are building themselves,

but the “from inside” perspective is hidden to the observation during this phase

– And, consequently, our point of view is distorted by more visible “from outside perspective”

What can we say about generations and media?

• The role of the media is growing if they can play a 360 degree role: material landscape, rituals, espressive space, narration tools

• it is decreasing if not every possible dimension are involved

Repertoires and mediated experiences (generational semantic)

Discourses and reflexivity (“We sense”)

Boomers (born in 1953-65; formed in ‘60s/’70s)

Massmedia audience:

National/international

Age of scarcity

Medium lifecycle

Strong sharing (and memories)

Scarce resources (print and radio)

Politically connotated

Conquered in adult age

Contested by Postwars

Posts (born in 1979-91; formed in ‘90s/’00s)

Mass and personal media audience: Global/local

Age of plenty (fragmentation)

Long lifecycle (e.g. reruns, dvd, and YouTube)

Wide sharing/nanosharing (and short memories)

Abundant resources (Internet)

Expressively connotated

Immediately accessible

Contested by Neos

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Forthcoming Publications

• F. Colombo, L. Fortunati (ed.), Broadband Society and Generational Changes,  Peter LangPublishing Group 2010 (English)

• Media+Generations, (ed.) F. Colombo, Angeli, Milano 2010 (italian)

• P. Aroldi (ed.), Generazioni, media e società, monographic issue of “Comunicazioni Sociali”, 2010 (english and italian)

fausto.colombo@unicatt.it

http:laculturasottile.wordpress.comhttp://mediageneration.wordpress.com