Youth Culture,Media and Globalization Processes in Greenland

• Published in: YOUNG
• Main Author: Rygaard, Jette
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2003
• Subjects: Greenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/11033088030114001; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/11033088030114001

Globalization has been advantageous for Greenland, in that it has broken the country’s isolation. The disadvantages described as results of modernization and globalization processes, such as the annihilation of local cultures, giving rise to further stratification problems or causing frustrations as individuals long for things they cannot achieve, are discussed in this article in relation to Thomas Ziehe’s levels of modernization’s penetration into society, culture and the individual. The analysis is based on empirical data from quantitative and qualitative research among 12–19-year-olds in Greenland in 1997 and 2001. As we see, the local culture is not at all in danger of annihilation. Socioeconomic differences exist and are unfortunately entangled in ethnic and centre–periphery factors. The young peoples’ leisure habits reveal an urge for a global lifestyle,but its limited availability does not seem to lead to a sense of being left behind as deprived locals in a global world.