Stream, scroll, (re)tweet - Cultural and Digital Capital as Indicators of Media Literacies in Croatia

Lecture by Dr. Krešimir Krolo (University of Zadar, Croatia)

This presentation deals with the complex relation between cultural capital, digital capital and media literacies for youth and general population in Croatia. Media literacies are facing profound challenges in the context of platform societies (van Dijk, 2018) due to the fact that critical reading of media messages is now interwoven with the issues of access and skills directly connected with the usage of digital-interactive technologies. Therefore, the competencies necessary for the individuals to adequately process, evaluate and even create content in the digital environment is now heavily saturated with the dispositions that are embedded within the structures that generate social inequalities. In order to pinpoint the relation between potential indicators of these inequalities and media literacies in the context of platform societies, various dimensions of cultural capital, as well as digital capital were defined as a starting point for the analysis. Presentation will consist of two parts. First part will give a brief overview of the current findings that considers this relation, while the second part will introduce findings from the data collected within two separate research projects, “Zadrugart” (2019) and “Medijsko obrazovanje je važno.MOV (2020). While the data set from the first project is based on the representative quota sample of youth in Zadar county, the second one consists of the probabilistic sample of adult citizens in Croatia. Using bivariate and multivariate statistical analysis the data will offer a rare glimpse into the differences in media literacies considering the type and amount of cultural and digital capital the individual poses.

Short Curriculum Vitae

Krešimir Krolo is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Zadar (Croatia). His main research interests revolve around the sociology of youth and the sociology of media with the emphasis on the relation between youth, media and culture. He has co-authored several papers in respectable international journals in the field of media and cultural consumption and has also co-authored a book titled “Classical music, punk and turbo-folk: cultural capital and value orientations of youth in Croatia” (2020).

About the Cluster „Media and their Counterpublics“

The cluster Media and their Counterpublics examines the complex dynamics between media (including new and old media; news, literature, film, photography, and social media) and different forms of publics and counterpublics, understood as discursive arenas parallel to mainstream publics.

In case you are interested in this type of research and collaboration, you are most welcome to join our cluster! Please contact: Barbara Ratzenböck (barbara.ratzenboeck(at)uni-graz.at) or Zorica Siročić (z.sirocic(at)uni-graz.at) for more information.