Second-generation youth and the new media environment

For first- and second-generation migrant youth growing up in Australia’s multicultural society, the use of new media technologies for communication, both locally and internationally, seems to facilitate a particular way of being that challenges traditional notions of identity. Being brought up in a diasporic community, but also within a global youth media culture, can mean that these young people’s experience of community and ethnicity is very different from that of their parents. Due to their greater participation in the broader Australian society, and greater participation in the educational system, many of these young people have become familiar with two languages, two cultures and ultimately vastly different ways of life from those experienced by their elders (Elley & Inglis 1995). They have had to build on their ability to move interchangeably between various social realms and consciously switch their language and behaviour (Elley & Inglis 1995). Understanding the processes that inform the creation and maintenance of both ethnic minority and Australian mainstream identities amongst second-generation young people is critical if these young people are to feel included and recognised, whilst avoiding the alienation and social exclusion that has had such ugly results in other parts of the world. It seems that this is especially so for migrant youth of Islamic background, who face a particular challenge in maintaining their cultural heritage in spite of an increasingly hostile public and media discourse