In this article I discuss the definitions and characterisations of media culture first generally and then from the specific viewpoint of young people. I review the discussion on the topic of young people and information and communication technologies (ICTs) by outlining the dominant cultural logic with regard to ICTs and the different forms of the digital divide. I also focus on new and unprecedented forms of socialisation, and consider the opportunities that enable us to get beyond the technology determinism currently dominating not just discussion on the media culture of young people, but also the wider public debate around ICTs. My approach emphasises the dialectical relationship between material reality and cultural terrain; it is at the crossroads of the tangible concreteness of the world and the various cultural discourses, where the meanings of both youth and ICTs continue to be built and re-built, contested and struggled over. In this context the media culture of young people comprises both traditional media, including print media, television and the telephone, and the more recent ICTs, such as computers, the Internet and mobile phones. All of these appliances are saturated with Western popular culture and advertising making their consumerist offers to young people in the process of forming their identities.
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