“If you get to know the youth, you can see into the future” – conference on youth culture

Young people listen to music in new ways, spend their free time in new places and use new language. Youth culture is a diverse and internationally relevant field of research, in which the Institute of Marketing and Communication Sciences of Corvinus University and the Youth Research Institute will be involved with a jointly organised conference.

“Both of the institutes behind the conference are engaged in topics related to the new culture” – said Dr. Levente Székely from the Institute of Marketing and Communication Sciences about the background of the professional event. Research on youth is ongoing at the university. For example, it is important for marketing to understand the consumption habits of the younger generation and find new ways of reaching them. Communication research is concerned with culture consumed in online spaces, the impact of social media and language use. “What is interesting in all areas is new paths,” said Dr. Levente Székely.

“We can see the trends, but it is difficult to talk about a homogeneous youth culture at the moment,” explained Dr Georgina Kiss-Kozma, researcher at the Institute for Youth Research and co-organiser of the conference. For example, we can see that leisure time has become more valuable in recent decades, and what young people do with it is also important for economic operators. Meanwhile, the range of possibilities has also expanded, for instance, the Youth Research Institute is looking at changing music consumption patterns. Their latest representative research, which will also be presented at the conference, reveals to what extent and in what situations classical music is present in the lives of young Hungarians.

But this is just a small slice of the topic. Research on youth culture from the fields of arts and marketing, linguistics and communication, and cultural studies is welcome. The conference will be held in English and Hungarian, with a poster session in the afternoon of the first day specifically for PhD students. “We would like to provide an opportunity for national and international researchers to get to know each other’s research areas and to establish collaborations,” said Dr. Georgina Kiss-Kozma. “If you get to know the youth, you can see into the future”, added Dr. Levente Székely.

Read the conference call here.