The automobile and the Internet are both technologies that enable com-munication across distances, symbolizing freedom and mobility. The automobile symbolizes and enables physical mobility and freedom of movement in material space, but with a limited reach. The Internet enables mental mobility and freedom of movement in virtual space; it is believed to make locality less pertinent, the freedom of movement being, in principle, unlimited. This chapter will analyze the co-construction of these technologies and youth cultures: how these technologies are rein-terpreted and given different symbolic and utility values among youth cultures, and how the use and non-use of the technologies figure in the shaping of the users’ identities. It is based on observations, interviews, and informal chats with young people in and around an Internet café in a village in central Norway during August and September of 1999.
Traditionally, users have been considered important actors in the dif-fusion and acceptance of new technologies; however, they have been viewed mostly as passive recipients of the technology. More recently, scholars pursuing constructivist studies of technology have begun to look upon users as creative agents of technological change. Even more recently, non-users have been made visible in studies of technology.
Similarly to the contributions of Ronald Kline and Sally Wyatt in this vol-ume, I intend to show how non-use and use of technologies pertain to the co-construction of technology and users.
In this chapter, I take a perspective within the thinking about users and non-users that perceives the use of technologies as a domestication process. Etymologically, domestication is related to the domestic.
Silverstone, Hirsch, and Morley, who introduced this concept related to technology appropriation, used it in relation to how technology is inte-grated into the “moral economy of the household.” They did, however, highlight the possibility that the concept might be used analytically to
understand the use and the appropriation of technology in other settings (Silverstone et al. 1992).1In the broader understanding, domestication has to do with how individual users, as well as collectives, negotiate the values and symbols of the technology while integrating it into the cultural setting. This process may be thought of metaphorically as “taming” (Lie and Sørensen 1996). Through domestication, technology changes as well as the user and, in the next step, the culture. More than within other con-structivist theories on technology and users, such as script theory (Akrich 1991) and the SCOT model (Pinch and Bijker 1987; Bijker 1987; Kline and Pinch 1996), the domestication perspective enables a thorough analysis of the users without relating directly to the design and manufac-turing of the technology. It allows for redefinitions of practice and mean-ings even after the construction of the technology is closed from the producers’ and the designers’ points of view and even if the shape and the intended use of the technology have been stable for a long time.
Silverstone et al. identified domestication as a process of four stages.
Sørensen, Aune, and Hatling (2000), however, refuse to talk of stages implying a defined succession, but define four dimensions of the process of domestication. Their dimensions are also more applicable in analyses that go beyond the household and its moral economy as the unit of study.
In this model, domestication is a multi-dynamic process in which the arti-fact must be acquired (that is, bought or made accessible in some other way), placed (that is, put in physical space as well as in mental space), interpreted (in the sense that it is given meaning within the household or the local context, and given symbolic value to the outside world), and integrated into social practices of action.
Strategies of domestication have a practical, a symbolic, and a cognitive dimension (ibid.). The practical dimension is focused on action and on how the technology is used and integrated into social practice. The sym-bolic dimension is focused on how the technology is interpreted and given various meanings, which the user may identify with or reject. The cognitive dimension is focused on the learning aspect of the technology use: what kind of competences are needed and created in the appropri-ation process.
Domestication is a contingent process, depending on local resources as well as on structural or global intersections. It is sensitive to local con-flicts, friction, and resistance (ibid.). In this chapter I will show how these aspects are relevant in understanding how young people use or reject technologies and how they integrate them as symbols as well as practical instruments into their youth cultures.
Technology and youth are highly influenced by, as well as being driving forces of, cultural globalization. Transportation technology makes long-distance mobility faster, cheaper, and easier, and cultural products in form of signs and artifacts are spread to any part of the (Western) world at tremendous speed—a development often referred to as time-space com-pression (Harvey 1990). At the same time, modernity is marked by time-space distantiation (Giddens 1990), whereby social relations are stretched out in space. In pre-modern society, Giddens argues, “space and place largely coincided, since the spatial dimensions of social life were, for most of the population, dominated by ‘presence’—by localized activity” (ibid.:
18). Modernity, however, includes, to an increasing degree, relations between what Giddens calls “absent” others, locationally distant from any given situation of face-to face interaction” (ibid.). Transportation and new communication technologies become more important as people try to cope with these increasingly complex time-space relations, .
Youth is defined here as a liminal stage in the transition from a child to an adult. In practical terms, the youth period implies that an individ-ual is undergoing education or job training and has freedom and inde-pendence to try and do various things before settling into adulthood.
This period corresponds to what Ziehe (1989) terms a culturally defined category of youth. This is a modern phenomenon, resulting from what Ziehe conceptualizes as cultural unleashment—an erosion of “tradi-tional” social structures that increases opportunities for choice but at the same time puts considerable stress on a young person.
Youth is a period of reflection on the questions “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to become?” The construction of identity is a collective as well as an individual process, balancing between individuality and identifica-tion with a group. Cliques and subcultures tend to flourish (Epstein 1998). Groups may develop in opposition to the hegemonic and/or the parent culture. Hegemonic culture is defined as the culture created by the most powerful groups in society, parent culture as the more class-spe-cific responses to the hegemonic culture (ibid.). Hebdidge (1979) shows how artifacts may play an important role for identity and identification with groups, where the acquisition of meaning of these artifacts involves a dual process of appropriation from the parent culture and transforma-tion within a subcultural context. The Internet and the automobile—
technical artifacts appropriated from the hegemonic culture as well as the parent culture—are transformed in different ways in the youth cul-ture as symbols as well as means of practice, acquiring different meanings and implications for identity.
My particular focus in this chapter is on the spatial aspects of identity.
Identity is not only about who one is and who one wants to become; it is also about where one is and where one wants to be. Spatial metaphors are often used in conceptualizing identity (Pile and Thrift 1995). Metaphors such as “roots” are often used to emphasize that identity is a steady and stable nucleus. One is “rooted” in a specific place, such as where one was born. Complex spatial relations, however, makes us relate to other places.
Not only does this give us the choice to reach out of the local; in addi-tion, we have to relate to more complex spatial relations, whether we want to or not.
There are large differences among young people in how they cope with spatial complexity. This is the case, first, in regard to their relation-ship to particular places with which they are affiliated and to which they create personal attachments. For many, anchoring to particular places is important for identity, whether to the place they were raised or to other places of meaning. Second, there is the consideration of relation to places that are out of reach in everyday life. For many young people, the journey itself, or the venturing out, is as important as particular places in their identity work. Thus, a more fruitful way to conceptualize identity in the modern and globalized society is to talk of identity as routes (Hall 1995). Young people take different routes in their construction of iden-tity, some remaining close to one place for most of their life and others exploring over greater distances (perhaps later returning to the old place and seeing it in a new light).
Cultural unleashment and spatial complexity may be particularly rele-vant for identity construction among rural young people who are exposed to a global youth culture and a society full of opportunities but who are able to realize few of these opportunities in the local context.
Research on youth has tended to focus mostly on urban subcultures (Thornton 1997; Skelton and Valentine 1998). However, in Scandinavia quite a few studies have been done on young people outside cities, and these have revealed tension between identifying with the local commu-nity and a desire to reach out and “see the world” (Jørgensen 1994;
Heggen 1996; Waara 1996; Fosso 1997).
This article will focus on two particular youth cultures in a village: the friks and the råners. “Frik” is derived from and pronounced like the English word “freak.” Its roots are in the American and British hippie subculture of the 1960s. Today in Norway this notion is most prevalent in urban areas, where young people express countercultural artistic and political preferences to varying degrees. “Råner” (pronounced “roaner”)
actually means boar, but in youth slang it has come to mean cruiser—that is, one who drives up and down a street. This masculine youth culture has been evident in the countryside and the small towns of Norway and Sweden for years (Bjurström 1990; Garvey 2001; Lamvik 1996; Rosengren 1994). New Zealand has a similar culture of “bogans” (Nairn et al. 2000).
These cultures may be related to the American car culture of the 1950s and the 1960s (Lewis and Goldstein 1983; O’Dell 2001). The råner cul-ture shows less of a connection to the United States, even though some råners use the American flag and other American symbols. Despite this and the fact that the preferred cars are Swedish, the råner culture must be understood as a local, rural, and Norwegian phenomenon.
In the rest of this chapter, I will analyze how the Internet and the auto-mobile are constructed in different ways in the frik and råner cultures, and how the spatial aspects of identity figure in this construction.
Communication Technology in the Norwegian Context
In the Norwegian political context, regional policy is of the utmost importance. There is a strong emphasis on protecting the countryside from population decrease, and on the right of people to choose to settle in peripheral areas. The state has played an active part in the develop-ment of industries and that of the communication infrastructure. The automobile and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been seen as devices to help people living in rural areas remain there or to make it attractive to move there from urban areas.
The automobile and the roads and bridges that accommodate it have been important in maintaining a dispersed pattern of settlement. The automobile has made it possible to live a rather “urban” life in rural areas, and also to live a rather “rural” life in small towns and suburbs built on the “garden cities” model (Sørensen and Sørgård 1994). However, as people become more mobile and as access to consumer-oriented mass media becomes widespread, the gap between the availability of services and commodities and that which people expect increases, particularly among the young and the more highly educated (Dale 1995). In line with this, bridges and roads built to connect remote places or to improve communication between places also serve as routes of escape, and access to the center increases. Despite the strong focus on the countryside in regional policies, centralization and urbanization have increased greatly in recent decades, though not as greatly as in some other European countries.
In Norway the automobile has been integrated into everyday life as a necessity. It is without real competition when it comes to everyday trans-portation. In addition to this, the automobile has been given symbolic values not necessarily related to transport; it is often a transportation medium for meanings as much as for persons and goods (Østby 1995;
Lamvik 1996). According to Lamvik, the first subcultures in Norway were car-oriented cultures inspired by those in the United States. This coincided with the deregulation of automobile sales in 1960.2 Boys and young men with particular interests in automobiles are still found in rural areas and small towns, often in association with traditional cultures.
As Wyatt notes in this volume, for many people cars reflect wealth, power, virility, and freedom. The Internet, Wyatt states, promises many of the same things on an even larger scale. The Internet may be perceived as overcoming spatial barriers to the extent that what is available some-where becomes available everysome-where. Where Internet access is available, it makes the global accessible to the local. The November 1999 monthly survey on access to and use of the Internet conducted by Gallup Intertrack showed that access had become available to 2 million people in Norway either at work, at school, or at home (Norsk Gallup Institutt 1999)—nearly half of the population. Because access is increasing more rapidly in towns and cities than in the countryside, the gap in Internet use between rural and urban areas seems to be increasing (Hetland 1999). The gap is smaller among young and more highly educated people, however. Thus, the rural/urban difference may be attributable to differences in age distribution and labor markets (ibid.).
The concept of the Internet as a space-annihilating medium is imple-mented in Norwegian policies on ICT as well as in regional development, in the sense that the policies emphasize the importance of using the ICTs to diminish regional imbalances.3
In the 1980s, optimism on behalf of the countryside was manifested in telecottages—multi-purpose telecenters providing commercial services based on telecommunication and some educational activities for the communities. Surprisingly from a technologically optimistic and techno-logically deterministic view, the telecottages closed one by one (Hetland et al. 1989, 1996). In regard to Internet technology, too, it seems that the potential of the rural districts was exaggerated. The increase in ICT-based industries, as well as in ICT use among common people, has come in urban areas, mainly near Oslo (the capital city). Regional and ICT policy papers state the importance of trying to develop a counter-policy. In
con-trast with the 1980s, however, it is now recognized that this depends on how the technology is put to use, not on the technology itself. Among the aims are the creation of competence-intensive jobs for the more highly educated, the promotion of telecommuting, and the establishment of small and medium-size enterprises.
In addition to their economic and job-creation aspects, the policy papers focus on how the technology may provide telemedicine, shop-ping, the arts, and culture to the countryside. In this way the government tries to encourage optimism in regard to how communication technolo-gies can improve the quality of life for people in remote areas. However, the possible cultural urbanization and increased access to the “world out there” which this provides may create pessimism in the countryside. It may tempt young people to orient themselves away from the local even more. “When I look at how my daughter uses the Internet,” the father of a 14-year-old girl living in the region in question told me, “she seems to become more global and urban. And if this continues, then this region will be no alternative for her.” This quotation describes a fear of some of the inhabitants of rural districts. Despite more facilities and opportuni-ties in the local region, the plans and expectations of young people increase accordingly, and the gap between what young people intend to achieve in terms of career and spare time activities and the possibilities available within the local region increases.
In recent years, volunteer-run Internet cafés meant to attract young people have popped up in rural areas and small towns. These can be seen as technical and cultural intermediaries in the process of innovation and diffusion of the Internet from the global market to the local community, where the new technology is integrated in an existing institution: the café (Stewart 1999). In Great Britain, several of these cafes have been estab-lished in urban areas in recent years, whereas in rural areas telecottages still provide Internet access in a social environment (Liff 1999).
Wakeford (1999) shows how in Internet cafés the computer becomes an element of social relations involving the staff, the guests, and the café’s atmosphere, décor, location, food, and drink. Stewart emphasizes that most of the activity at a Scottish Internet café—using a computer as well as drinking coffee and chatting with people—can be done as well at home, and that the café becomes a home away from home. It is interest-ing to see how in Norway this is constructed as an urban phenomenon in the cultural sense. “Cafés” were first established in the cities of Norway during the “yuppie” urban trend of the 1980s, and have up until now been found only in urban areas. The construction of “urban Internet
cafés” in rural districts is, however, rather paradoxical, since Internet cafés rarely exist in the larger towns and cities.
Places to Meet: The Internet Café and the Automobile
The village in question is situated on an idyllic peninsula in a fjord of mid Norway, about 600 kilometers north of Oslo, 400 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. The village is the main center of an extended municipality with 6,000 inhabitants. Although considered a pleasant place of resi-dence, the migration balance has shown a slight deficit for several years, which is a problem not only for this place but also for the region as a whole. Agriculture and the food industry are the main activities. It also serves as a dormitory village for commuters to neighboring towns.
Entering the village on an ordinary day, the calm, almost dull atmosphere is striking. The only street, despite a couple of shops, a police station, and a bank, is rather empty even during what would usually be rush hours. A few people are sitting in the co-op cafeteria, mostly retirees or mothers with small kids. In the afternoons you find some school children and
Entering the village on an ordinary day, the calm, almost dull atmosphere is striking. The only street, despite a couple of shops, a police station, and a bank, is rather empty even during what would usually be rush hours. A few people are sitting in the co-op cafeteria, mostly retirees or mothers with small kids. In the afternoons you find some school children and