Adolescents of the 1960s and 1970s: An Italian-Portuguese comparison between two generations of audiences

Vol.6,No.2(2012)
Special issue: Generation and mediated relations

Abstract
This article explores how far the media technologies, contents and habits experienced in the years of youth contribute to the shaping of collective identities, which are shared by all the members of a generation. On the basis of two sets of empirical research developed in Italy and Portugal according to a life-story approach, it compares the self accounts and media memories of two generations of audiences living their youth in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970s. The relevance of national and international media systems as a part of the “structure of opportunity” that contributes to the forming of generational identities was identified as framed by other structural constraints on political, socioeconomic, educational and cultural levels. In each country, attitudes toward technological innovation and media domestication lived in their years of youth also affected the first contact of people belonging to these generations with ICTs and new media in the 1980s and 1990s.

Keywords:
generations; media memory; qualitative research; life-story approach
Author biographies

Piermarco Aroldi

Author photo Piermarco Aroldi, (PhD), is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at Università Cattolica of Milan and Piacenza, where he teaches “Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes” and “Media and Children Culture”; he is vice-director of OssCom, Osservatorio sulla Comunicazione, research centre focusing on Media Studies. His research interests are about the temporal dimension of media, Media consumption in the everyday life and in a generational perspective, Media and children. He is member of the COST Action IS0906 – “Transforming Audiences, transforming Societies” (http://www.cost-transforming-audiences.eu), of the Eu Kids Online Network (http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/Home.aspx) and of Procotin Network (http://www.procotin.es/es/).

Cristina Ponte

Author photo Cristina Ponte, PhD and Habilitation in Media and Journalism Studies, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, at the New University of Lisbon (FCSH-UNL) and a researcher at CIMJ. Her main research areas include children and media, media and generations, digital inclusion. Coordinating the Portuguese team in the EU Kids Online Project and a Working Group in the COST Action IS0906 on Audiences, she is currently vice-chair of the ECREA Working Group on Children, Youth and Media.
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