Global Media Journal -- Canadian Edition

As part of an international research proposal titled “Cultures juveniles à l’ère de la globalisation” (Youth cultures in the age of globalization), we are developing a comparative study from the cultural perspective of globalization on the construction of aesthetic cosmopolitanism among young people from France, Canada, Australia, and Brazil. This international research analyzes how young people build representations of themselves and their relationships with the world, through the consumption of cultural goods, and their experiences of a global culture.

In the Brazilian research project, “Cosmopolitismos Juvenis no Brasil” (Youth cosmopolitanisms in Brazil), we have deepened the study of media consumption, in order to understand individuals’ cultural consumption and its relation to global culture. Our perspective is that Brazilian young people’s cultural consumption is hybrid, because of: 1) its connections to global culture, local culture, and the formation of “glocal” (Robertson, 1992) and hybrid cultures (Canclini, 1998); 2) its experiences between the logic of entertainment and participation (Bekesas, Riegel & Mader, 2016); and 3) its connections and experiences with different forms and formats in various media—mainly digital.

In this article, we aim specifically to deepen this third issue, by understanding the hybrid cultural consumption of young students from São Paulo, Brazil, through its connections and experiences with different media, mainly digital, in hybrid forms and formats. In order to develop this study, we present the analysis of empirical data built upon 52 exploratory questionnaires (in 2014) and 40 interviews (in 2015) conducted with young students (from 18 to 24 years of age) living in São Paulo. In order to understand the Brazilian context in this analysis, we performed a triangulation with secondary data from “Brazilian digital youth” by IBOPE (2012) and “Connected youth” by Telefonica Foundation/USP (2014).

Based on the analysis of the role played by media in the consumption of cultural products-such as TV, movies, series, music, newspapers/magazines, comics, books, video games, blogs/websites, and social networks—we reflect on two main questions: 1) evidences of a digital divide, according to their socio-economic profile and their access to information/entertainment, and 2) possibilities of cosmopolitan encounters, through the consumption of international cultural products and the search of information regarding other countries and cultures.

The current technology and means of production-consumption, through the appropriation of different platforms, devices, and formats, create new arrangements into the daily experiences of young people. The historical subject, recognizer of codes, narrative genres, and formats, makes use of, within this context, other forms of disputing meanings. They try to achieve access to immaterial networks, which are hybrid, through digital media, a process that Néstor Canclini (2009) calls as dematerialization of culture.

It is in this direction that Manuel Castells (2009) claims that there is an unprecedented power, mainly through digital media of content transmission, reprogramming communication networks and changing the mass communication paradigm. They subvert the industrial logic of communication from the 20th century, and propose a new configuration, established both as connection and as content. Power is then articulated through the main collective and social movements around the globe, as well as through the most hedonistic promotion of futility, trivia, and/or singularities, which otherwise would not have media space for distribution and consumption. In the topography of digital media, global and unambiguous causes, from ecology to the extreme hedonism, and from selfies to isolated passions, coexist. Hence, there is representation of a full range located from individualism to communalism. In contrast, the polarity between local and global expands or restricts geographically and socially the existence and the range of content.

In the consumption of digital media, the relation of time-space dimensions is different, since digital does not dissolve over time, nor it is tangible in a specific shape, but in content. Thus, we continue our discussion within the cyber culture context, considering these dimensions and the conditions of ubiquity and remediation, which allow the understanding of the hybrid cultural consumption. For young individuals, life experiences are constructed through the devices’ pixels. These experiences are simultaneous and coexist in the speed of light, where spatial dimension is overlapped by time.

Paul Virilio (2000) considers this perverse equation in the cyber world, explaining that the local time is different from the never-ending now, which is global, glocal, and unique. The local temporal organization has been the way people experience their own existence. But the velocity of contemporary speed eliminates, at the same time, the intervals in which we experience space, and compresses time, subtracting human references and experiences. It is under the light and command of this acceleration that is the subject, amid reproduced images through the cyberspace.

According to a statement made by Ferrara (and translated by the authors into English): “if the cyberspace is the placement of cyber culture, it stems from the acceleration that mobilizes this space” (2010: 67). Although this acceleration does not occur in the linear format of traditional communication, as Ferrara explains, cyberspace and its cultural effects depart from an accelerated mode, overcoming the communicative linearity, looking for unpredictable or disparate paths. Media in this world infect culture but also resist to determination and control.

Would spatial relation within cyber culture be a productive process of virtual worlds, or more controlled and territorial framing, with the production of objects and places? Lemos (2010) does not consider that the dichotomy of the processes within cyber culture regarding place is enough to explain the context of the contemporary information society, called by him as informational territory. Intersection areas between cyberspace and urban space—digitally controlled intersections—create new functions for places, a heterotopia (Lemos, 2010: 101). Wireless networks, sensors, and mobility create new uses of the place, new layers of digital information, hence new forms of territorial processes and informational control.

Young people use this territory to share and recreate the world around them because they feel powerful to transform it through their actions. It is in the informational territory that the young individual realizes they are both author and co-author, through copy-paste actions and daily mixing and re-mixing. In this process, it is through remediation (Bolter & Grusin, 2000) that young people and the contemporary society are preserved against the advancing conformity, present in everyday digitization. Remediation connects forms of exchange/interaction in between communicative paradigms of contact modes, from digital to analog media, and back. Tending to the invisibility of mediation, media takes over the rehabilitation bonds among people. There is a dematerialization of communication interfaces that causes a “transparent” access of the real, as a process of media fascination, or multiplication of mediations. The remediation marks the cross-contamination within media at a given time. With digital media the process co-opts young authors, who, immersed in this process and aware of their experiences, create possibilities of recovering space—not the physical one, but a space formed by flashes in several places at once. In this ubiquitous process, sharing multiplies and blends subjects present in different places, with their own content.

Given the hybridization of physical space and of cyberspace—with new senses of place and community—and the various relations of young people with cyber culture (as consumers and/or as producers), there is a transformation of information’s territories into entertainment’s, in a mass self-perspective, promoting contact between global flows and local meanings. Considering this process, would it be possible that cosmopolitan encounters (those that allow the development of a vision of the Other) take place, based on the hybrid cultural consumption (both global and local, both in the hybrid reality of cyberspace as cyber culture) of young people?

This study aims to provide more data to the debate on youth cultures, and its discussion concerning subjectivities and sensory/cognitive technicities. Young people are subjects structurally mediated by their interactions with technology (Martín-Barbero, 2006), especially in the contemporary context of digital technologies. Studies that trace Internet users profile (Recuero, 2009) show that they are primarily a young audience, and have increasingly exchanged analog media for digital ones.

First, we analyze the Brazilian context and data from our questionnaires, with a triangulation with two national data sets. Secondly, we deepen our discussion on the connections and experiences of media and cultural consumption, analyzing our interviews.

In order to understand specifically the hybrid cultural consumption (mainly digital) among young Brazilians living in the city of São Paulo, our analysis first makes a triangulation of 3 data sets: 1) “Brazilian digital youth” research by IBOPE (2012); 2) “Connected youth” research by Telefonica Foundation/USP (2014); and (3) empirical research with students living in São Paulo, based on the cultural consumption of 52 structured exploratory questionnaires conducted in May 2014, as an exploratory phase of the research project “Youth cosmopolitanisms: Brazil project, Step 1”.

According to the Brazilian context built by the research Telefonica/USP (2014), there are 22.5 million youngsters (from 18 to 24 years of age), representing 11.7% of the national population, and 60% of them have access to the Internet. In comparison, 48.1% of the Brazilian homes have at least one computer, and at the same time 60% do not have access to the Internet. In the southeast region (where São Paulo is located), 54.6% of the homes have at least one computer (the highest range in the country). This context shows first the relevance of analyzing young people and its connection to digital media (in a higher proportion than the population’s average), as well as the divide reality, once there is an important amount of people that do not have access to a computer or the Internet. Also, we highlight that our discussion is focused on the largest and richest city of the country, located in the region where digital connection has the highest rates.

First, regarding the socio-economic profile of young people accessing digital media in Brazil, we compare the two national data sets from IBOPE (2012) and Telefonica/USP (2014) in Table 1. In both data sets, class C (low range middle class) is the most representative in the Brazilian reality, as a reflex of the concentration of the Brazilian population in this socio-economic range. IBOPE (2012) does not differentiate the middle class (B) from the richer class (A), describing that 36% of users are in both groups, information that is a little bit different from the data from Telefonica/USP (2014), which shows more concentration in class B (38%), which demonstrates also the increasing access of young people from middle-class to Internet. The low representation of class A is due to the low representation of this group in the Brazilian population, not to difficulties in access to digital media, unlike the reality of young people from classes D/E (poorer classes).

Table 1: Socio-economic Profile of Young People Accessing Digital Media

Classes	A	B	C	D	E
IBOPE (2012)	36%		53%	11%
Fundação Telefônica/ USP (2014)	5%	38%	49%	8%	-

The educational profile of Brazilian young people is described as: 32% of undergraduate students, 34% with completed high school, and 53% are full-time students (IBOPE, 2012). The proportion of young people in undergraduate education still does not represent the majority of the universe in this age group in the Brazilian reality, but it is closer to the classes that have more access to Internet, with more resources for the acquisition of equipment and/or access to sites with connection and devices (Telefonica/USP, 2014). Many of them are already working, and this is an explanation for the possibility of purchasing devices, as well as having access to Internet in the workplace.

The dataset from Telefonica/USP (2014) divides the connected young people into three profiles: beginner explorers (62%), intermediate explorers (33%), and advanced explorers (5%). From these profiles, the most similar ones to the undergraduate students interviewed in São Paulo (ESPM, 2014) are the intermediate and advanced explorers, because these are university students, from the southeast region (mainly from the capitals), study and work, and have access to Internet from their own houses or devices. Due to the close relation of access (both financial and physical) to Internet, these young people already have knowledge of the tools and opportunities offered in the cyberspace, and are co-authors when sharing and creating content in digital media, showing great affinity with the cyber culture themes and its possibilities, for both personal, academic, and professional goals.

Considering the forms of access to Internet (Table 2) in the survey conducted by Telefonica/USP (2014), the smartphone appears as the main media for digital access.

Forms of Access	Smartphone	Desktop	Notebook	Tablet
Fundação Telefônica/ USP (2014)	71%	62%	51%	16%

Specifically for cultural consumption activities, the students from São Paulo (ESPM, 2014) answered that they use more the personal computer (28.8%), than the smartphone (17.4%) and the tablet (2.2%). They spend on average 15 hours every week on their computers and 92 hours every week on their smartphones, using different social networks. For most of them, they have their smartphones connected to these networks continually, mainly for personal purposes. This continuous connection is used more for communication reasons (e.g., messaging services such as WhatsApp or Messenger), but also for exchanging images, videos, and short posts (e.g., Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook).

According to the data set from Telefonica/USP (2014), the main activities carried out by young people on the Internet are: communication (37.3%), leisure (29.6%), reading newspapers and magazines, searching for information (28.7%), and education and learning (28.1%). Communication activities are mainly accessing social networks, with 58% doing more than once every day. Considering the leisure and entertainment activities specifically, the most common are: watching movies, series, and TV shows, and listening to music (37% do it every day); downloading, for example, music, films, videos, texts, and games (34% do it every day); posting music, videos, and digital content (31% do it every day); and playing games (23% do it every day).

In the interviews conducted in São Paulo (ESPM, 2014), 44.5% of the cultural consumption time is concentrated in social networks, followed by 16.5% in music, 12.4% in websites/blogs, 6.3% in books, and 5.7% on television. The computer and the smartphone are more used on a daily basis for this purpose by these young people, emphasizing the degree of connection they have, and the relation between digital media consumption and entertainment. Corroborating with this perspective, 47% of young people, according to the IBOPE survey (2012), indicate that the Internet is their main source of entertainment, and multiple media are used for this consumption.

The consumption of social networks, either to share digital content or to follow what friends are posting, is the most frequent factor also pointed out by the IBOPE survey (2012), where 92% of young people use social networks, 90% to see pictures posted, 86% to read updates on their timelines, and 75% to express their opinions on general topics. There is also a highlighted interest on posting, sharing, and seeing/listening to music and photos, a fact that is less prominent for news and texts in general. In the case of university students specifically, there is greater emphasis on the consumption of books, mainly by the demand for their academic studies, and low television consumption (movies, series, and various programs).

Social relations and approaching people are factors highlighted by young people (49% from Telefonica/USP, 2014). The amount of contacts in social networks, for example, shows the extent of socialization opportunities: from IBOPE (2012) they have 352 contacts, and 31 friends on average. Students from São Paulo (ESPM, 2014) have 677 contacts and 17 friends on average, a fact that shows the more advanced relation of this advanced profile (ESPM, 2014). This fact reinforces the possibilities of contact with other cultures, through the consumption of cultural products (foreign or in another language), or through direct contact with people who are in another country (traveling or living) and/or foreigners.

The possibility of meeting people who physically they would not, and to know places without the need of traveling is pointed out by the young people interviewed by Telefonica/USP (2014). In the IBOPE survey (2012), 67% said they want to travel and see exotic places, and in the case of São Paulo’s students (2014), 51 of the 52 have traveled abroad (average of 7 countries) and 29 have lived outside the country (ESPM, 2014). The profile of young people from São Paulo also shows a closer relation with different cultures.

According to the IBOPE survey (2012), 26% of young people speak English and 15% Spanish. This shows closer ties with global consumption in the university students from São Paulo’s experiences, since 100% of them claim to speak English and 77% Spanish. This knowledge, applied in everyday life, results in the consumption of cultural products of foreign origin (60.1% of cases), focusing mainly in the North American origin (17.3%), because of the knowledge of the English language (they prefer to consume movies, music, and other materials in the original language), and because of the proximity to the entertainment industry from the United States, which is the world’s leading producer of cultural products. For communication purposes in social networks, however, students affirm that they mainly keep touch with people from Brazil, speaking and exchanging messages in Portuguese.

The analysis of media consumption and the role played by media in the consumption of cultural products—such as TV, movies, series, music, newspapers/magazines, comics, books, video games, blogs/websites, and social networks—lead us to two main questions for discussion: 1) evidences of a digital divide, according to their socio-economic profile and their access to information/entertainment, and 2) possibilities of cosmopolitan encounters, through the consumption of international cultural products and the search of information regarding other countries and cultures.

Based on the analysis of 40 interviews conducted with students in São Paulo from February to May 2015, we analyze their hybrid cultural consumption, through their connections and experiences with media (mainly digital). They have access both to the tools (devices, connection) and to the required knowledge (languages, codes) that they need to produce and consume the different digital formats and applications.

In a 2008 report from the UK Department for Communities and Local Government about Digital Inclusion and the relationship between Social Disadvantage and the Information Society, Dr. Ellen Helsper stated that “studies have shown consistently that individuals who have access to ICTs, from the telephone to the Internet, tend to have more schooling, higher incomes, and higher status occupations than do those who do not have access” (2008: 06).

The increasing potential of the Internet to widen access to information and enhance communication capacity has brought opposing arguments about the social consequences of Internet use. Advocates of the “digital divide” thesis argue that the Internet advantages privileged groups while further marginalizing disadvantaged social categories. Critics of the thesis see the expansion of the Internet as enabling and egalitarian, promoting social inclusion and facilitating democratic participation.

In spite of the widening opportunities for networking, critics argue that the use of such technologies is typically restricted to those at the top of existing social hierarchies (e.g., Dawson & Foster, 1998; Wolf, 1998). Due to increasing commercial application, the new digital technologies function as commodities, and their distribution—at least initially—tends to follow existing divisions of class, race, and gender. Therefore, rather than assisting with equalization, the new ICTs tend to reinforce social inequality, and lead to the formation of socially and technologically disadvantaged and excluded individuals (e.g., Golding, 1996; Zappala, 2000). Several conceptualizations of the digital divide exist (e.g., DiMaggio et al., 2004; Katz & Rice, 2002; Mossber et al., 2003; Norris, 2001; Warschauer, 2003). Most conceptualizations generally identify four areas of importance: attitudes, access, skills, and types of usage.

Global inequalities in Internet use remain substantial, with international evidence supporting the continuing relevance of sociodemographic dimensions for influencing Internet use (Haythornthwaite & Wellman, 2002). However, the nature of disparities between users varies between countries (Chen & Wellman, 2004). While gaps based on gender, age, and region are narrowing in the U.S., divides based on age, education, and rural/urban residence persist, with income the most important factor for predicting use. The picture in the UK is similar, while in Germany educational difference is the principal dividing factor.

There is a certain assumption that making use of the concept of digital divide as a way to focus on the digital technologies of communication and interaction as a cause to social divide, or at least, a maintenance platform of what is happening outside it, may seem inaccurate to what we are finding so far. But at the same time, the ubiquity of Internet connection and the diversity of devices have contributed to form different realities on that matter. The digital consumption of the upper classes has different standards and even distinctive formats; still there is a “trickle down” effect. This means the social divide exists digitally, albeit the inclusive proposal of the Internet. Yet, the belonging aspect of social networks has been also arousing among the popular classes, making it easier to set hybrid consumption situations, whether for cultural or entertainment purposes.

This perception of both social and digital divide is narrated by one of the students from São Paulo, A., 20 years-old, from a private university: she affirms that through social networks mostly, but on Internet in general, there is intolerance as a tonic, she considers xenophobia is being spread, once differences are seen as a threat. This is also related to the fact that people are selfish and narcissistic and do not worry about human rights. Through the Internet there is only superficial information, so you do not really know the reality out there.

Analyzing the formation of the students in São Paulo, we found that they have an intermediate or an advanced profile of Internet users. This is due both to their socioeconomic profile and to their academic formation (college and language learning). This profile develops a sharper exploration of the communication, entertainment, and information search functions within digital media. In addition to the contacts formed by traveling, they concentrate their cultural consumption on foreign products, especially North Americans. Through it, these young people increase their cultural capital, expanding possibilities of encounters with other cultures. Therefore 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.

Comparing data from the students in São Paulo with Brazilian youth that connect to the Internet, we found that this profile can be mostly considered as elite, which builds its cultural capital for social distinction. In the analyzed perspective, both access to digital tools and contact with cultural products and with people from other countries result in a distinct capital of these young people. Thus, it is relevant to discuss the phenomenon of digital divide, and the differences of realities regarding access to Internet and digital devices that still exist in Brazil, since there is a part of society that is hyper-connected and has privileged access to communication, information, and entertainment, and at the same time another part that does not have financial resources or physical access to connect and to have equivalent digital consumption standards. This division also demonstrates the process of territorialization and control of digital networks, according to various socio-cultural logics.

From the perspective of media consumption, the students prioritize entertainment, hence cyber culture can be considered as “cyber fun”, aligned to the cultural mass consumption, and the logic of the global market in the entertainment industry (and its hegemony/standardization, mainly concentrated in products of North-American origin). There is no questioning of the production and alienation processes within this space, and the hybridization of their cultural consumption is not built from a local and/or individual vision, which could meet with a vision of themselves to the world. The hybrid consumption aligns primarily to the interactive entertainment advertising process that seduces these young students through their multiple contact platforms. The remediation, which marks the cross-contamination among available media, is built ubiquitously, and the participants of the entertainment venues share content produced by the industry and remedied by their contacts from different networks. This is the experience told by one of the students, F., 21 years-old, from a private university in São Paulo: he watches movies and TV series through the Internet, most of his contacts are on Facebook, and he has got online friends only—even his girlfriend he met through an online dating app.

In relation to the acceleration in the information search and the ubiquity of media within cyberspace, individuals interact both in fast and multiple ways. Considering the timeless and physically unlimited availability of digital communication of these young people, we inquire the relations between individualism/communalism and global/local, both in the formation of cyber culture and in the broader spectrum of their cultural capital. The media perspective of hyper acceleration among individuals searching for information and entertainment does not seem to work with the reflexive recognition of the Other, since it does not build dialogues and encounters, but an annulment of the Other, through the filters of interest and connection enabled. In the relationship of the individual with cultural consumption for entertainment, commonality is related to hegemonic/global standards, and not to differences and local specificities of the self and the Other.

The hybrid cultural consumption, inserted into the logic of entertainment and cyber culture, thus forms mediations and possible remediation in the configuration of cultural habits, which shift among globalizing, unifying, and hegemonic experiences. We found that in the case of the students in São Paulo, a “glocal” culture, is generally not formed.

The access of tools and knowledge to produce and consume on digital media is a reflex of the social divide we live in, as well as it enhances it division, thus creating digital divide. Although the digital divide is a critical point in many studies considering the elderly, the young, the unemployed, assuming on their assumption that it might be the cause of each one of those aspects, we cannot assure that digital divide is enhanced by the hybrid cultural consumption that happens mostly on the Internet, and its many forms of interaction.

Other, both in a global level, meaning their consumption practices do not necessarily have dialogue between the global and the local, thus enhancing digital divide, both within their own city/country (distinctive access to digital media) and within contacts with other countries/cultures (hybrid cultural consumption can form only an aesthetic perspective of global culture).

Considering the opportunities to connect with other cultures and with people from other places, we highlight the fact that media consumption by these young students shows us some gaps and paradoxes. Through them, we realize how the subjects construct representations of themselves and of the world, through the consumption within “glocal” contexts (Robertson, 1992)—both of globalized cultural products (mainly North Americans) and of their contacts with the Other (mainly locals).

Cicchelli and Octobre (2013) claim that the concept of cosmopolitan needs to be used in relation to common everyday situations, such as daily cultural consumption. This discussion, therefore, looks for possibilities of cosmopolitan encounters within the hybrid media consumption and from the contact with other cultures.

The everyday experiences of the young individuals from São Paulo show many degrees of reflexivity. Cosmopolitanism based on media consumption can be disconnected from openness to otherness, but it can also be related to a committed and critical insight, in explicit forms, related both to the discussion of stereotypes or through comparison tools.

We found stereotypes in A.’s narrative, 20 years-old, which states that consumption of movies and information is globalized, mainly in British and North American origins. For her, to be connected to the world is to have connection with the leading global media and mainstream culture. Similarly, O., 21 years-old, says that he only consumes American cultural products, which are part of the mainstream culture. He says that he makes it for fun and to feel part of the world, sharing the same tastes and practices with millions of others around the world.

Regarding comparison tools, we have F.’s narrative, 21 years-old, for whom the consumption of music and television is related to cultures from other countries, mainly the United States and England. F. understands that when he consumes media he is looking for interaction possibilities, for learning and having fun with other cultures. In a different way, B., 22 years-old, shows a critical perspective to the cultural mainstream products. She declares that she consumes American movies, on average three times per week, but also other countries’ products. For her, cinema is a way to connect to the world, and world view means different cultures, people, and languages, even if they are distant to her culture.

In the use of these comparison tools, through the mixed use of domestic and foreign cultural products, is the figure of the cosmopolitan amateur (Cicchelli, Octobre & Riegel, 2016).

This is different from other amateurisms because it is dealing with transient and reversible commitments in cultural repertoires that are not strictly defined by education. In addition, this amateurism is fond to the growing importance of horizontal generational socialization among peers in the digital environment, serving also as a resource for young people.

We noticed the figure of the cosmopolitan amateur in R.’s narrative, 22 years-old, when he explains that film and television are completely out of his cultural consumption, and that he focuses on music and video games as proper channels of culture and entertainment, where he has the ability to exchange information and meet people from other countries and cultures. R., as his peers, proves to be an avid consumer of cultural products for entertainment, because they have the possibility of exchanging and building experiences, mainly through digital consumption, which gives a freedom of interaction.

So, in this amateurism, the question is not measuring the level of knowledge about other cultures, but the degree of perception, its closeness—or distance—with otherness in a massive flow of the cultural context. As in the case of B., who believes that American cinema is not as interesting as movies from other countries, precisely because they have a different cultural perspective. R. demonstrates deep understanding both of what happens in the American contemporary music scene, as well as the video game one, and he considers both important for entertainment consumption and also for contact with the American culture.

Finally, for I., 24 years-old, born in Niger and living in Brazil for eight years, curiosity is a determining factor. His mobility and experiences allow him to build maps, to care with the places he visited and share a local life temporarily. As he defined, he is a traveler, but wants to really experience the places where he lives. Through affinities with other young people living in the visited and lived places, he builds a shared emotions relationship.

Our discussion from the narrative of these young people can be, hence, understood as: the willingness to exchange experiences with others, with intense use of digital media. These individuals are connected, and they make the network a potential environment for the experiences they want to live. As cartographers, the use of their social networks and other environments allows them to build an exclusive map, traced by their mutual recognition. Dealing more with themselves and with others, about the world that surrounds them, they are looking at a mirror, facing a world of diverse appearances and reflections.

These narratives allow us to raise two main hypotheses, considering this hybrid cultural consumption: 1) through the access of different tools and knowledge and cultural diversity formed through their experience, these young students may build cosmopolitan encounters on their daily digital practices; or 2) having access to other languages or codes does not mean that they will develop a reflexive stance.

Following the same logic of the global market, the media consumption we analyzed, particularly through digital media, focuses on North American products and institutions. It does not mean, however, that these young people consume in a standardized way, since there are possibilities of incorporation of comments, content, and meanings from local signs. This leads us to observe that there are both massive standards for consumption, as well as alternative ones, as we have seen in some profiles from São Paulo’s individuals.

The acceptance or rejection of American cultural products focuses on symbols of the American culture and its mainstream media products. The refusal of U.S. production in a given cultural production, such as cinema, for example, does not mean, however, distance from products originally from that country, especially if we evaluate the reality of digital cultural consumption and its main media by these individuals.

Cinema, music, comic books, books, television programs, and other cultural products are forms of contact with global culture, with production of local realities. Standards, regarding cultural consumption, and in particular the consumption that occurs in media devices, are drivers, because it is in the standardization of audience and content that the cultural industry concentrates its production of cultural consumption goods. Faced with the global standard, there are, still, different forms of local consumption, which can develop different reflective attitudes and forms of participation.

The proposed discussion of media consumption by young people in the city of São Paulo (a global city, perhaps cosmopolitan), from a cultural perspective, reveals that there is presence and use of global products for entertainment, but not necessarily this aesthetic experience results in local reflexivity. Thus, we consider that these young people would be what we call amateur cosmopolitans.

The media consumption of cultural products, notably the global, mainstream ones, could be a way for young people to develop reflexivity. Moreover, interests and affinities for other cultures, for their differences and challenges, also mark an intention to look at the Other. Through reflexivity, it would be possible to build a cosmopolitan attitude, a perspective with foreign interpretations, a step in relation to otherness. These are the questions that follow in our research on the cultural consumption experiences of young Brazilians.

Considering the two main hypothesis regarding the hybrid cultural consumption of young students from São Paulo, we can share some discoveries: 1) we cannot assure that digital divide is enhanced by the hybrid cultural consumption that happens mostly on the Internet, and its many forms of interaction; and 2) a “glocal” culture, which would enable cosmopolitan ordinary encounters, is generally not formed through the access of different tools and knowledge, and cultural diversity formed through their experience.

Once our goal is not having a single Brazilian profile of hybrid cultural consumption’s practices, but rather a multitude of profiles co-existing all along in this cross-nation country, we consider these discoveries as one possibility to compare and to validate. This means not only understanding different realities of young people in São Paulo, but also in other major cities of the country. With this multiplicity we will be able to understand better if there are other possibilities of cosmopolitan encounters, as well as understand how divisions are built socially and digitally.