Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

The globalization of culture – the effect upon culture of the “increasing connection of the world and its people” – is perhaps nowhere more visible than in the changing nature of the relationship between the world’s youth and their sense of identity
(Solomon & Scuderi 2002:13). It has become commonplace to think of the world’s youth as that part of the community who are most receptive, or, alternatively, susceptible to, foreign cultural practices. If childhood means acceptance, and adulthood means conservatism, youth means rebelliousness.

Youth are seen as the part of society that is most likely to engage in a process of
Cultural borrowing that is disruptive of the reproduction of traditional cultural practices, from modes of dress to language, aesthetics and ideologies. From Japanese punk to Australian hip hop, youth subcultures are seen as being implicitly rebellious, born as much from a desire to reject the generation that went before them, as from an identification with what they have become.

Exactly how accurate this widespread impression may be is difficult to assess. What is certain, however, is that the age of globalization, more than any other age before it, is an age that has both exerted great effects upon, and been greatly affected by, young people.

Adolescents undergo the process of identity formation as one of their foremost development challenges. This paper addresses what role the mass media play in this process. One avenue of exploration would be to examine how the media can impact the adolescent’s perceptions of social reality, which could lead to the internalization of certain attitudes as the adolescent struggles to develop a stable core repertoire of attitudes, beliefs and values.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY GLOBALIZATION Globalization, which also has been called global