Turning against old ways

Ariadne Massa's article about new research concerning the media impact on Maltese youth culture was noticed by a commentary blog today. The findings of New Zealand based Joe Grixti demonstrate that Malta's new generation is tired of the Maltese status quo:

Politicians and the Church have come under fire from young people who believe the two are "major exponents of the old ways of doing things" who fail to take their needs and interests into account. This emerged from research carried out by Joe Grixti, who examined how young Maltese consumers are influenced by broadcasting and assessed the impact of global and local media on the young people's culture.

The qualitative study was the subject of a public seminar held yesterday evening by the Broadcasting Authority at Robert Samut Hall, in Floriana.The findings have been compiled in a book-length report entitled Broadcasting And The Young Adult Consumer: Local And Global Media Influences On Maltese Youth Culture, which the authority will be publishing in the near future.

Dr Grixti, a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand, based his findings on data from a series of focus-group interviews with 195 young men and women aged between 14 and 25. Many interviewees expressed impatience with the "old way of doing things", insisting that greater openness to new ideas, especially to those from technologically advanced cultures, was essential to Malta's further development.

The full article here.