YOUTH CULTURAL LEISURE: CONSTRUCTING AND REPRODUCING MEANING WITHIN SUBCULTURES IN THE CONTEXT OF MEDIA TRANSFORMATIONS

Abstract

This work aims to identify the main worldview and cultural coordinates of specific forms of youth leisure and to describe the peculiarities of meaning construction and reproduction within subcultures in the Context of Media Transformations.The research methodology combines philosophical-theoretical, cultural and general scientific approaches. Specifically, the study employs the analytical-historical method, synthesis and abstraction, comparison, as well as methods of systematization and reconstruction of sociocultural phenomena. The scientific novelty. This article attempts to analyze and generalize the mechanisms through which cultural meanings are constructed and reproduced in the context of youth leisure and self-realization in media culture. It explores the interconnection between emerging forms of cultural space and new social processes in contemporary Ukraine. Conclusions. Each subculture consolidates around a core symbol, musical genre, religious teaching, philosophy, or similar element that forms its cultural code. This code is reproduced and transmitted through its texts, attributes, appearance, and naming. For example, the “cult of the road” reflects the meaning of travel and is expressed in participants’ appearance, accessories, and slang. The cultural code of gamers is shaped by virtual space and game-related themes. Gamer culture possesses its hierarchy, rules, names, and a “gaming movement” based on game texts. Some subcultures are unified solely by a specific place of communication, which takes on a meaning-making function. Such spaces of social gathering become markers of identity and symbols of group affiliation.In each subculture, special sign objects can be identified – verbal, ideographic, and situational sign objects, objects of the surrounding world that play a sign role in this subculture, and their spatial, temporal, object, and body codes. The spatial code, which is transformed in media culture, plays an important role in constructing the meanings of the youth subculture.