Hybrid Cultural Consumption of Young Brazilians: Mechanisms of Cosmopolitan Encounters within Digital Media

This article will present some of the guiding concepts and the empirical data that we have been using to problematize the hybrid cultural consumption, focused on digital media, as mechanisms to contexts of cosmopolitanism. This discussion is part of the research project "Youth cosmopolitanisms. Brazil project", linked to the international project "Young People ́s Cultural Cosmopolitanism”. The emphasized proposal is anchored on a reflective base over (1) the cultural consumption and its relationship in contemporary society with entertainment ; (2) cyber culture as means of the mass self communication and ubiquity. The analysis of empirical data is developed through a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data from our research correlated to the "Brazilian digital youth" study of IBOPE (2012) and "Connected Youth" survey from Telefónica/USP Foundation (2014). As mechanisms of cosmopolitan encounters, the hybrid cultural consumption of young Brazilians can be analyzed both by its connection to different cultures and the possibilities of belonging and mobility, even if only technological/virtual and not necessarily physical; and by its exposure to a ubiquitous reality, where communication and encounters may have different logics than those of the mass entertainment industry. These mechanisms can be a response to the urge to belong, coexist, co-create and feel part of something bigger, but they can also reproduce models of distinction, meaning that the digital divide also maintains certain logics of the cultural and social contexts where these individuals live. Through our data analysis, we find that the hybridization of cultural consumption for these young people is focused on the hybrid reality of cyberspace and of cyber culture, but does not necessarily provide encounters that form a ‘glocal’ culture, or what we call an aesthetic and amateur perspective of cosmopolitanism.