Online Social Media, the Cure All Panacea for Young Aspirant Graduates

This paper examines ongoing PhD research conducted by the author that seeks to understand the perceptions of those aspiring to work in the contemporary cultural industries (CCI). Using aspects of the conceptual toolkit offered by seminal sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, it is specifically concerned with self-imposed internalised limits, as expressed by a cohort of aspirants through previously conducted interviews.

Self-imposed limits to the horizons of possibilities is representative of a deficit in their forward socially imagined place in the world. This problematisation can be examined through their conception of a ‘feel for the game’, as they aspire to enter into this key field. The paper questions how the studied sample cohort possess an innate knowledge of their position relative to structure. This possession led them to exclude consecrated and legitimated routes into the various CCI industries. Instead, unilaterally asserting the primacy of social media as the only viable career path available. Wherein, social media is therefore viewed as a misrecognised doxic panacea, readily available to the cohort in lieu of them not being in possession of sufficient capitals, both valued and discursively sanctified by the predominate field of cultural production.

This paper aims to discuss a key aspect of the PhD study, using selected data from broader findings to demonstrate how questions of class – as internalised habitual ways of being, limit the horizons of possibilities for a cohort of young people from East London, UK.

This is an abstract only.