Subcultural communities of the provincial youth

Abstract

The development of youth subcultural communities in sociocultural space of the modern provincial city is intensified by the development of the information and communication technologies. Using the results of the questionnaire poll conducted among young people (Saransk city, (n=621), the authors describes youth subcultural communities in terms of delocalization, virtualization and diversification. The article portrays representatives of the youth subcultures in a modern Russian provincial city. They involve active participants of the youth subcultural communities, passive consumers of subcutural resources and former participants. The share of the representatives of the youth subcultures makes up 39% of the sample; 9% of them call themselves active participants. Despite low percentage of the active participants, more than one-third of respondents are included in different subcultural practices in Saransk due to higher accessibility of subcultural information. According to the authors` findings, the development of telecommunication technologies increased the scale of subcultural practices among young persons, facilitated the popularization of subcultural context; however, personal contacts are still the basic way to communicate with subcultural community.