Chilean Youth Culture in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

Drawing from a cultural studies perspective, this dissertation examines digital, visual, and idiomatic expressions and platforms that both create and inform youth culture in Chile. In what ways have globalized media trends influenced cultural production, class-consciousness, and identity formation in Chilean youth culture, and how do these expressions mirror a global neoliberal agenda and shed light on a history of economic, political, and religious globalization in Chile? In order to answer these questions, this dissertation provides an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate changing media trends in Latin American youth culture. I argue that cultural influence of the United States and the rise of global neoliberalism have informed the production, reception, dissemination, and identity formation of this segment of Chilean society. This dissertation is organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 provides a historical contextualization of political and economic changes in Chile as well as the literature review and theoretical foundation for my analysis. Chapter 2 contends that the class-consciousness spectrum in Chilean television and film works as a reflection of consumption behavior and identity formation in youth that has been informed by a U.S. neoliberal agenda. Chapter 3 studies one particular young Chilean, Germán Garmendia, and his popular YouTube channel, "Hola Soy German," to argue that the spreadable and invisible factors that inform his global success as a grassroots, "latino" vlogger can be traced to U.S. digital commercialism. And lastly, Chapter 4 highlights digital texts of the student organization, "Chile Siempre," and their stylized performance of moral values through mediatized and digitalized spaces in order to reveal U.S. religious and cultural interventionism through evangelical missionaries in Chile. The triangulation and interdisciplinary approach of these texts expose a consistent history of political, economic, and religious transculturation and calls into question U.S. cultural influence in Chile that continues, while not overtly, to manifest in new media forms.