Identities on the line :articulations of on and off-line communities amongst UK youth

Abstract

This research presents empirical work which grounds the discourses of socially inclusive 'communities' in a 'global information society'. The empirical work focuses on a specific group of young people aged 11 to 25 living in one of the most ethnically diverse and poorest boroughs of London, Newham. The thesis explores the ways in which the group construct their 'online' community (Newham Young People Online) and how their identities as young people are re-produced through the interplay between their everyday and their technocultural lifeworlds. Key to the work is how the group is using and shaping ICTs and cyberspace(s), which are central to a 'global information society', in different ways: to explore creativity, to find diverse ways of self-expression, to understand 'difference' and to discover other spaces of learning and education against a background of social exclusion.