GLOBAL, HYBRID OR MULTIPLE? THE NEW CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF IDENTITIES

Joseph Dean Straubhaar (University of Texas at Austin)

This paper explores the multiplicity of levels of media use and identity as a key element of the changing cultural geography of globalization. The movement from traditional local life to modern interaction with mass media has produced identities that are already multilayered with cultural geographic elements that are local, regional, transnational based on cultural-linguistic regions, and national (Anderson, 1983). Both traditional and new media users around the world continue to strongly reflect these layers or aspects of identity while many also acquire new layers of identity that are transnational, or global. In this paper, we examine the relationship between processes of hybridization of identity and culture over time and the buildup, maintenance, and defense of multilayered identities.