Purchasing the Canadian teenage identity: ICTs, American media, and brand-name consumption.

• Author: Gennaro, Stephen
• Position: Information and communication technologies

Introduction

In 1973, anthropologist Clifford Geertz stated:

We live ... in an 'information gap.' Between what our body tells us and what we have to know in order to function, there is a vacuum we must fill ourselves, and we fill it with information (or misinformation) provided by our culture. (1) Less than a decade later sociologist Raymond Williams wrote that the information provided by our culture (to borrow a term from Geertz) was "Advertising: The Magic System." For Williams, advertising is not simply a means of selling but also "a true part of the culture of a confused society." (2) Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) along with the merger between the culture industries and big business have produced individuals with fragmented identities who are oversaturated with images, relationships, and information: in short, saturated selves. (3) This dislocates the individual from conventional forms of identifying "who they are" As such, the saturated self is a displaced individual who is also part of a larger Technological Diaspora, that is, those who search to redefine themselves in light of new ICTs and return to their homeland, their consumption-constructed nation, or the imagined community of youth.

The idea of an imagined community was first conceived in 1983, when Benedict Anderson, a former Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, published Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. In his work, Anderson chronicles how language formed nationalism and how nations were mere artificial constructs that bound people together--even when geographically disparate--through the idea of sharing similar cultural patterns (namely, language). (4) The reconstruction of Anderson's "imagined community" in the new millennium is produced by the culture industries of the media through the privileging of youth culture, which allows people from all geographic areas, age brackets, racial backgrounds, and economic conditions to share similar cultural patterns of consumption (or, at minimum, the desire for consumption) of products that make a person feel young. Whether listening to a popular radio station, skimming the pages of a fashion magazine, watching a television sitcom, or simply walking down a city street, the culture industries' message is simple: (1) to be young is to be happy; (2) youth is "hip"; and, (3) the way to be young is to buy products that give you that youthful feeling.

As youth search for acceptance during adolescence and continually look for a sense of identity and community, they rely (either consciously or unconsciously) on the culture industries for guidance. Young people find their identity in the mythical media creation of the imagined community of youth. (5) The desire to be a citizen in the imagined community of youth, however, is not restricted to young people since the line between adulthood and adolescence has been blurred by the culture industries. As a consequence, the processes that have been attributed by psychologists to the stage of development in the individual's life referred to as adolescence are now life-long processes which leave that individual in a state of perpetual adolescence. (6)

This article examines the emergence of perpetual adolescence as a growing concern in North American society. It looks at the ways in which American popular music, popular culture, and advertising influence and disturb the identity formation of teenagers by linking the rise of American big business and advertising over the last 150 years with developments in ICTs to illustrate how and why a distinctly youth focus arose in the media. While much has been written about young people and their relationship to the media, and, more recently, the phenomenon of childhood disappearing, no one has yet noted that what is really happening is that the media is extending adolescence forever. Childhood has now replaced adulthood as individuals find themselves in a state of perpetual adolescence. Everyone enters childhood with their first purchase of a commodity, but now no one ever leaves it. Like the "Hotel California" in the 1970s Eagles pop music chart topper, "You can check in any time you want but you can never leave." (7) In this perpetual state of extended adolescence, there is no longer the "in-between period" separating infancy from adulthood; it is now the "in-between period" separating birth from death. Perpetual adolescence allows one to understand why fifty-year-old men buy Harley Davidsons and why thirteen-year-old girls wear thongs. It makes sense of the recent home renovation phenomenon and the brand-name craze of cultural commodities. In short, it helps one understand today's postmodern-globalized society.

This article is also interested in the formation of a Canadian Teenage Identity, and how it is influenced consciously and unconsciously by American media and advertising. As a nation, Canada's dependency on the United States for cultural artifacts, goods, services, and identities leaves the country in a precarious position. In many ways, the culture, cultural production, and the culture industries in Canada are merely local reproductions of larger American currents of thoughts, images, and actions. What then makes the Canadian Teenage Identity different from its American counterpart? Nothing. Previously, one might have argued Canadians have not become "American" because of their focus on issues of social justice, social welfare, and social responsibility. However, recent trends in Canadian society stemming from the country's own period of adolescence, desire for definition, and push towards an active role in the global economy have placed Canada in a position where the difference between the two countries is disappearing rapidly.

In an era of global markets and the decline of the nation-state, the question arises, why study Canada as a nation and why discuss its search for national identity? Arguably one could say that Canada is no different than many countries that experience the push of American cultural industries. Two quick points need to be made here to explain why Canadian identity matters. First, even as the world is getting infinitely bigger (or smaller depending on one's choice of metaphor) due to globalization and ICTs, the argument that the nation-state has been or is being replaced by international corporations only works on a political level. From a cultural standpoint, the nation-state, as a form of identifying one's self, shows no signs of decline. Whether using the American president or the golden arches as an example, American culture is always on display around the world. Microsoft, Starbucks, Nike, and Coca-Cola are all international corporations with no connection to the political governance of the United States, but it would be ludicrous to suggest that every time a person sees the logo or hears the jingle of these companies that America, and the ideals it promotes (freedom, democracy, liberty), are somehow not connected. The only thing globalization has done to change the role between nations and culture is perhaps to illuminate that the Nike swoosh and American flag are as connected to images of child labor, consumerism, and questionable foreign policy decisions (i.e., invading Iraq) as they are to rags to riches stories. Globalization has forced a re-examination of relationships between nations without dismissing the idea of nations, nationhood, or national identity. Second, it is precisely because the lines between nationhood and national identity have become blurred between Canada and the United States that Canada can be used as an example of an adolescent nation. While many nations have experienced a heavy influence from U.S. industries, no country has had to endure it like Canada. Canada is America's most important trade partner to the tune of over $300 billion annually. (8) The two countries share an economy, a border, a media, and except for healthcare, same-sex marriage, Cuban policy, tolerance of marijuana, and Iraq, they also share a culture.

This article also examines the North American Teenage Identity, in that American advertising, big business, and media are discussed, but whenever possible Canadian examples of media saturation are included. The North American Teenage Identity refers to young people who define themselves through the consumption of cultural commodities while at the same time including older North Americans who seek to be active citizens in the imagined community of youth by purchasing the same cultural commodities. When speaking of "purchasing of the Canadian Teenage Identity" it is as a player in these two North American phenomenons as well as referring to Canada as an adolescent nation in the global community.

The Imagined Community of Youth

Benedict Anderson asserts that the nation can be considered an imagined political community, and he linked this idea to the rise of, first, the printing press, and then, print as commodity, which allowed for ideas surrounding the nation to be circulated and exchanged. The availability of knowledge through print as commodity and the accompanying rise in literacy challenged (a) ideas surrounding divine monarchs and social hierarchies, (b) the notion of privileged access to truth in script language, and (c) the idea that history and cosmology were the same. The possibility of imagining the nation only arose once these three previously held "givens" in society had been undermined by the arrival of print as commodity. (9)

In much the same way that the imagined nation arose out of the technological advancements in printing and the mass availability of print as commodity, so too did the possibility of imagining a community of youth arise from advancements in technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beginning with the railroad and telegraph, technological advancements fueled the rise of American big business...