Lost in the Funhouse: US Youth Culture and its Commodification

Introduction -

    "Youth culture" is a decidedly difficult thing to study today.  It's difficult because it's hard to know how much of what is presented as youth culture is a product of youths themselves, or images and representations of youths that have been created by others.  You could call the former "true" or "authentic" and the latter "false" or "inauthentic."  In a world dominated by media images, though, this either/or dichotomy grossly oversimplifies things.  Paradoxically, youths themselves come to know how they should act based on mass-mediated depictions of youth culture.

Hole Lotta Attitude: Courtney Love and Guitar Feminism

Introduction -

    Hole, led by Courtney Love, is the most successful and visible of the girl-powered bands which have shaken the contemporary alternative-rock scene.  The music industry, in general, has woken up to the fact that girls buy records and, more importantly, girls sell records.  In keeping with her desire to 'be the girl with most cake' ('Doll Parts', Live Through This) Courtney has taken more than her share of the commercial pie thanks to break-though albums such as Live Through This and Celebrity Skin. 

Rethinking Youth Cultures: The Case of 'The Gothics'

Introduction -

    If the news media are correct, the Gothic youth subculture now constitutes a familiar part of the social landscape.  Like Skinheads and Punks before them, Gothics are now a standard feature of most Western cities, versions of which occur in the countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and the United States (Lees 1988; Shuker 1989; Widdicombe and Wooffitt 1990).

"You Can Take The Boy Out of Bundy, But You Can't Take the Bundy Out of the Boy": Regional Youth and Community

Introduction -

    In this paper, I will argue that regional youth moving to urban centres, have difficulty adjusting to their new environments for two reasons.  Firstly, their understanding of themselves must change substantially as they move from communities which have been critical in shaping and informing their identities.  Secondly, they must adapt to new communal norms and discourses to which they previously did not have access.  I will argue that this is compounded when youth move to urban centres for the purpose of studying at university.

Pop Music: Authenticity, Creativity and Technology

Introduction -

    This article has its origins in a few conversations I have had and a few newspaper and magazine articles I have read about pop music.  A couple of arguments seem to crop up regularly.  The first focuses on the creative genius of certain sorts of pop music artists, and contrasts this with the artificiality of other artists.  I'm sure you know the kind of thing: Oasis vs The Spice Girls, for example.  The first type of artists (by the way, excuse the word 'artists', I'm a child of the sixties) is presented as innovative, creative, original; the second plastic, contrived and formulaic.  The second kind of argument I hear ....

What the !#&* Have Values Got to Do With Anything!  Young People, Youth Culture and Well-bring

Introduction -

    When does freedom of speech and artistic expression become abuse of a precious right?

    Several years ago, in the summer of 1996-97, I was caught up in a passionate debate about obscenity in rock music lyrics.  It begin with an article I wrote for The Australian in which I argued that the extreme violence and obscenity in some rock music was perhaps - I was fairly tentative about this - one of the many ways in which the mass media were contributing to the creation of a culture of disillusion and demoralisation.

"I'm sorry, you said she was how old?"  Youthfulness and the Fashion Model

Introduction -

    "Welcome to the Kingdom of modelling" (Morris 1997: 6)

    As a young girl, the world of fashion modelling perplexed me.  Tall, slender and appallingly beautiful, sylph-like women strutted up and down the catwalks and stared back at me from the covers of magazines.  I admired them from far, always aware of the implausibility of my ever being up these strutting alongside them, as I was too young.  These fashion models were women, not girls.  However, it never ceased to amaze me just how much these women looked like girls, so young and fresh, despite their obvious womanly attributes.  How were they women yet, ....

Indigenous Youth and Offensive Spaces

Introduction -

    How young indigenous people use public spaces, and how these spaces are regulated, are important social issues.  There are two causes of the greater surveillance and intervention in public places, first, of young people high levels of contact with the criminal justice systems second, disproportionately high numbers of young people in police custody and detention.  Why and how this is the case warrants close attention.

Youth Crime, Risk and Governance - A View From Queensland

Introduction -

    Among other things, Henry Mayhew, the grand English empiricist of the last century, devoted much of his time to counting, cataloguing and classifying all manner of natural and social phenomena.  His enthusiasm for counting the specs of dust generated by horse-drawn carriages was matched by a careful taxonomic analysis of the London poor.  In several volumes of 'London Labour and the London Poor' (1861-2) Mayhew distinguished various types of thieves, beggars, drunkards, gamblers and prostitutes.  His encyclopedic analysis of such 'low life' characters provided detailed information on such things as health, personal habits and mannerisms, social and education background and methods of criminal operation.

Indigenous Young People and Victimhood

Introduction -

    Recently a debate occurred in an Australian youth studies journal about myth making and the idea of rising social problems faced by young people (see Bessant and Watts 1998, Eckersley 1998).  One side of the debate suggests that concerns about young people as victims of change or sources of misrule are a recurring myth unsupported by empirical evidence (Bessant and Watts 1998:5).  The other side maintains that on the whole there is overwhelming and disturbing evidence that young people are suffering and that "there is more hope to be found in admitting to a problem than in denying it" (Eckersley 1998:52).

Gangland: the Political Abjection of a Generation

Introduction -

    The proposition that a solution to youth unemployment begins with compulsory literacy testing for dole recipients induces a certain sense of unease.  The first thought that came to our minds after reading the newspaper reports was the rather surreal notion of thousands of letters generated by the Centrelink computers addressed to non-readers warning that failure to pass a literacy test will lead to dire consequences.  What concerns us about this rhetorical gesture masquerading as public policy is the exclusions it both perpetuates and presumes.  Howard's latest scheme ....