ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to interpret the contemporary dynamics of youth cultures and subcultures by considering the implications of three major developments that are reshaping the life prospects and experiences of young people worldwide. These are the international transfer of information, images and ideas accompanying the spread of global capitalism; the expansion of social networking and increased use of mobile phone technologies; and radical changes and challenges to social and environmental well being arising from present global financial and ecological trends. Effective digital infrastructure and the capacity to purchase digital technology have until recently tended to be limited to relatively wealthy countries and individuals. The continued globalisation of a specifically capitalist political economy is reshaping class relations in ways that are reverberating through to the local level in all parts of the world today. The dynamics of inequality are thus neither uniform nor entirely predictable.
