Genetically digital, hyper-medial in the behavioris the expression that bestsyntesizes the portrait of post-modern generations, often in opposition comparedto the enthusiasm of a lot of recent scientific literature oriented towards thedeepening of the relationship between youth and digital media.Indicators of generational identification change and even the interpretativeparadigms of communication sociological scholars have to change.
The culturalhabits of young people suggest us to ask about the cultural value of the media forteens, the new trends of behavioral individualism, that give us new concepts on therelationship between youth and media: is it possible to speak about new formsof ego-technologies?
This book describes the complex picture that renders the problematicperspective of analysis and research for those who are interested in this topic. Specifically, the book is a range of macro-analyses on the individualization of newinterpretative theories: from hardware to software. It is almost as an inversion offocus, to those more inserted into the critical map, as the delicate question ofdigital competences are often too imbalanced on types of aesthetic citizenshipbecause they are oriented towards skills while completely lacking in ethicalresponsibility and critical analysis. On Air. The European Project On Media Educationhas been an effective researchinput that has allowed us to take hold of the scientific discussion on therelationship between digital media and teens in the perspective of citizenshipeducation, both from a methodological and thematic point of view, and in order tolaunch new stimuli of cultural investigations and closer examinations. On the other hand, the book seeks to investigate the role of cultural mediation,as redemption from the philosophy of excess, evident in both cultural behavior andthe acquisition of competences and finally in the socialization pendulum which istoo unbalanced to the ego.
The depth of cultural capital in the behaviors of digitalconsumption is at the basis of the new frontiers of digital citizenship.

Ida Cortoni is Assistant Professor in Sapienza University of Rome; coordinatorof Media monitor Observatory of Children in the Department of Communication and Social Sciences (www.discuniroma1/minori/it); didactic coordinator of MultimediaEducation Master, instituted by Sapienza and ProMEDIA2000 (www.medmaster.it); Professor in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative processes, in Pedagogicalmodels for e-learning, in Laboratory on Media Research and Digital production inthe Sapienza University of Rome.