New media and cultural identity - a critical approach to the use of Facebook among Algerian youth
Abstract
Identity question, as it relates to the Information and Communication, is a central question in
cultural talk. While the New Media has updated, through its different means, thoughts on the cultural
identity and young people’s identity in particular, statistics constantly confirmed that these latter are
the most users; based on that, is determined the importance of our study which aims to find a relation
between Algerian youth use of “facebook” and their cultural identity.This research belongs to what is
known as a stream of Sociology of uses, where we determined our methodology for the critical
approach in Sociology of uses, as we approached the user and its personal interactions in a first
stage, under what is known as studies of micro sociology. We also took into consideration the
constancy of these interactions in a larger and global technical context which is Facebook, through
our analysis of the role of what is called the Meta and Mezzo Data, that helps in defining and the
surrounding of the interactions, all within a larger framework called: macro level, so we can achieve
our research purpose by first shedding light on the types and forms of the content of the sharing and
the interaction of Algerian young people and which reflects the components of the Algerian cultural
identity, besides, we had to dwell on the point of the creative and the appropriate use of this
technical application and its importance for the users. Moreover, we could remark the young people’s
identity is illustrated more through their virtual identity and this by the analysis of its three elements:
Declarative Identity, Acting Identity and Calculated Identity, as well as how it refers together on
Algerian cultural identity. Finally, and within our critical approach we will analyze the course’ role of
the complementary use, i.e. facebook course and its role in surrounding students interactions and
structuring it at a mostly technical level.
