II ULUSLARARASI ÇOCUK VE GENÇLİK EDEBİYATI SEMPOZYUMU

Internet has given this generation the option of not being mere consumers, but join producers.
Some teen pop stars began their career by recording music at home and playing
it on YouTube. Even if the internet has not made the teenage dreams of Generation Z
more accessible, it has made them look more accessible.
Middle-Eastern Generation Z
When it came to access to media, the difference between an Iranian or Middle-Eastern
teenager and an American one, maybe a decade ago, was so huge that they could not be
considered of the same generation. The difference is still there. Access to high speed
internet is not the same for an Iranian and a European student. However, we can still
talk about a large population of Iranian teenagers who have common experiences with
teenagers all over the world. I am not saying that this population comprises the majority
of teenagers in Iran, but I can be certain that they will one day become the majority. I
cannot say that the young adults most in the habit of reading books should be sought
among the same teenagers, but because of the social class that these teenagers belong to,
the main cultural consumers should be found among them. “Main cultural consumers”
are those who allocate a part of their daily shopping cart to cultural products and, by
paying money, guarantee the lasting and independent publication of cultural and artistic
works.
According to these researches, this generation who are mostly born in the 1990’s, have
been called the internet generation, the blogging generation, and the smartphone generation.
If the common experience of the previous generations was national television, this
generation has attained its common experience in using communication and information
technologies. Easy access to global cultural products, e.g. books, films, music, TV
shows, as well as access to modern individual and collective media, such as smartphones,
the internet, and satellite TV, has formed a close link between this generation and
global culture.
Some experts have distinguished between those born in the first half of the 1990’s and
those born in the second half, calling the latter, “the video game generation”. It is doubtful
whether emphasizing video games is a good ground for distinction because while the
advent of high speed internet led to the possibility of downloading games, which transformed
video games significantly, video games were popular among Iranian teenagers
even before the internet and blogging.
The previously mentioned attributes are true about Middle-Eastern Generation Z as
well. The low average age shown by studies on underground music bands show that
Generation Z teenagers are devoted music fans and are very keen to join these bands or
sing along with them. These studies indicate that underground music is increasingly
choosing its producers and audience from Generation Z. The pervasion of the jargon
used in this kind of music among high school students shows the influence of this music
on teenagers. On the other hand, as many underground bands release their albums online,
the youth has easy access to this type of music. Needing little musical knowledge,
existence of software for compiling music, home recording studios, and small bands are
facilitating factors that encourage many teenagers to make this type of music. Recording
performances with handycams and uploading it on websites such as YouTube make
their dreams seem more accessible.
A World Is Behind This Closed Door
Now, taking all these into consideration, let us picture a teenager, in a house in our own
Tehran, or our own Istanbul, or our own Beirut or another city in the Muslim world.
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