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A variety of Department of Canadian Heritage representatives were able to take advantage of a visit to Ottawa by Max Valiquette, one of North America’s foremost experts on youth culture and marketing, on September 12th, 2007. At this informal meeting , Max shared insights into how youth are behaving online, how youth are engaging with wider society, and how youth feel about Canadian culture. Youth is loosely defined as the age until marriage and children.
Not surprisingly, the conversation was dominated with references to Facebook, today's "zeitgeist", in Max’s view. In just under one year, this social networking site has 3.5 million unique visitors (and growing daily), the majority of whom are between the ages of 15 and 35. Max revealed that content repurposing tools such as Facebook are the first choice for youth for all their content and interaction needs. Facebook already is the leading photo sharing site in Canada; Max feels that hubs like Facebook, or for that matter, portals like Culture.ca – if designed to be relevant, will mean the end of single-purpose sites. When looking at overall technology use, there is a distinction between digital natives, born after 1982 versus digital tourists who remember life before the Internet. Digital natives have a different view of privacy. They have no problem using a work e-mail address for all their personal communications. They post their c.v.’s alongside their photo meant to find a romantic partner on their Facebook profile. They define plagiarism differently. Likewise, the way that youth use technology is reflected in convergent technology. Currently, youth have two pieces of convergent, interactive technology--their cell phone and computer. Max feels that the pace of technological change will soon lead to one piece of technology (i.e. the iPhone) which will enable people to take their culture everywhere they go. Technology also affects how youth engage with society. Interactive technologies allow youth to “find their voice”; they can comment on and shape their world. Furthermore, today’s youth perform many adult activities such as working (and paying taxes), taking care of younger siblings, buying their own clothes and school supplies—often for 4 to 5 years before the voting age. Therefore, Max does not find it surprising that young people do not vote. They don’t see a need to vote. However, they are strongly engaged with global issues such as the environment. Finally, Max commented on how youth view culture and more specifically, Canadian culture. Overall, youth expect cultural content to be free (no-cost), freely available (any platform) and constant (not scheduled publications). Max feels that the shift in technology is affecting "tier 1" culture, but will increase the amount of "tier 2" culture. For example, while the tier 1 music industry has seen large economic losses caused by downloading, the amount of tier 2 new music is actually increasing. Shifts in the film industry may not be so clearly apparent as he cited 5 movies that grossed $300 million this summer, firm examples of the tier 1 film industry model still succeeding. However, Max does feel small, independent films will do better and better as the classic model erodes. When it comes to Canadian culture, youth behaviour reflects the absence of geographic boundaries on the Internet, in TV and film. Max feels that the most popular films and TV are largely American because of the higher quality. He could not think of an English-language, mainstream, Canadian film (or TV show) that had made an impact on youth. Youth don't want to pay for "bad" culture which is how they view the Canadian film and TV industry. Max commented that the Canadian music industry is a different story. Youth view Canadian music as high quality and quality is important. The discussion did not fully explore the link between cultural policies such as Canadian content regulations and how that may account for the differences in success between the music industry and film and television industries. Max floated some final ideas for his audience on how to improve the Government of Canada cultural “brand” amongst youth. If the content is viewed as 'the best of culture in Canada', youth would probably go there. Social networking, blogging, podcasting, commenting, rating, and tagging are "utterly critical" to successful Web sites. Government could and should be a "facilitator" of culture - providing the bandwidth and tools to let the public make their content available (e.g. using a government online space and government bandwidth to stream audio or video). |
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