Adolescents of the 1960s and 1970s: An Italian-Portuguese comparison between two generations of audiences

This article explores how far the media technologies, contents and habits experienced in the years of youth contribute to the shaping of collective identities, which are shared by all the members of a generation. On the basis of two sets of empirical research developed in Italy and Portugal according to a life-story approach, it compares the self accounts and media memories of two generations of audiences living their youth in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970s. The relevance of national and international media systems as a part of the “structure of opportunity” that contributes to the forming of generational identities was identified as framed by other structural constraints on political, socioeconomic, educational and cultural levels. In each country, attitudes toward technological innovation and media domestication lived in their years of youth also affected the first contact of people belonging to these generations with ICTs and new media in the 1980s and 1990s