Literature on youth and risk has traditionally been dominated by psycho-dynamic explanations of social action, studied within a set of adult and problem-centered discourses focused on the abuse of alcohol and drugs, unprotected sex and dangerous driving. Despite the most radical deterministic positions no longer hold sway, many studies on youth risk-taking are still grounded in a series of assumptions about the meaning of youth and adolescence that see biology and psychology as key influences on behaviour (France 2010). Thus, the research intends to investigate the relationship between young people and risk-taking, shifting attention from excess to pleasure, and analyzing perceptions and experiences of online "dangerous games" (Giordano, Farci, Panarese, 2012; Giordano, Panarese, Parisi, 2017) in a sociological perspective.
Dangerous games are heterogeneous forms of fun - such as balconing, choking games, and surfing suicide - common to which are: the search to overcome physical, legal or moral limits; performative dimensions exhibited among peers or spread by digital media; playful or challenging connotation.
A specific aim of the research is to identify the main hermeneutical dimensions that characterise the risk-related attitudes and behaviours of young people in social-media-based dangerous games, such as Cinnamon challenge, Tide Pods challenge, Salt and ice challenge, etc. Social media challenges - also known as social media dares - are viral videos of people performing acts based that they have been dared to do.
The methodology includes content analysis, discourse analysis and visual analysis of online images and texts regarding a selection of social media challenge on the main Social Network Sites (SNS), and a nationwide web-survey aimed at detecting perceptions and experiences of risk-taking in the social media challenges, and differences and similarities in symbolic, normative and moral assumptions on risk among young people and adults.
Literature on youth and risk has traditionally been dominated by psycho-dynamic explanations of social action where risk-taking is supposedly linked to biological and psychological developments. Despite the fact that the most radical deterministic positions no longer hold sway, many studies on youth risk-taking are still grounded in assumptions about the meaning of youth and adolescence that see biology and psychology as key influences on behaviour and adolescence as a dangerous period of change, turbulence, irrationality, and limited cognitive skills, implying a ¿pre-social self¿, separate from society (France 2010). Actually, the idea of a universal and turbulent adolescence has been challenged by anthropological, sociological and historical research (Cohen 1997; Gillis 1974; Mead 1931; Springhall 1986). The concept of risk must be correlated to the social context in which it is elaborated and shared, as is evidenced by well-established sociological and anthropological literature (Beck 1986; Ewald 1986; Giddens 1991; Le Breton 1991; Luhmann 1991). Risky behaviour is a fluid and elusive concept, which can be widened or narrowed depending on the point of view.
Moreover, the relationship between youth and risk seen from a social constructionist perspective has been identified within three areas of interest: ¿the construction and influence of lay beliefs, the impact of social interaction and power relations, and the habituation of risk and risk-taking¿ (France 2010, 324). This integration of attitudes, relationships and behaviours appears to be a good basis for investigating risk-taking among the young, but this still needs exploration. Both the psychological and sociological literature on risk and risk-taking pay scant attention to the positive contribution risk may make in a young person¿s sense of self and identity and to the association of risk and pleasure. The exception is the Lyng studies (1990) on edgework, i.e. the actions of those who voluntarily engage in dangerous leisure activities (such as anarchic hard drug use or extreme sports) which take place at the boundaries between consciousness/unconsciousness, sanity/insanity, life/death. Moreover, in the adult world being a risk-taker can have a positive meaning (Plant and Plant 1992) associated with ¿facing and conquering fear, displaying courage, seeking excitement and thrills and achieving self-actualization and a sense of personal agency¿ (Lupton and Tulloch 2010, 115).
Such explanations of risk-taking are seen as acceptable forms of behaviour within adult culture; however, insufficient consideration has been afforded them in studies on young people.
Much discussion on risk and risk-taking by young people is, furthermore, conducted within a set of discourses which is both adult and problem-centered. There has been little in the way of analysis of what young people mean or understand by the terms `risk¿ and `risk-taking¿.
Moreover, most studies on youth risk-taking consider behaviours such as the abuse of alcohol and drugs, unprotected sex or dangerous driving (Carbone 2000). The risks involved in leisure activities attracted little attention from scholars, with the exception of extreme sports (Celsi, Rose and Leigh 1993; Lyng 1990; Stranger 1999).
Thus, the research is innovative because it intends to overcome these limitations, listening young people by means of a survey aimed at collecting their viewpoints and experiences, using research tools that sought to restrict the imposition of an adult vision of the concept of risk, shifting attention from abuse or excess to the relationship between pleasure and danger, considering a new object of scientific research, not yet investigated in a socio-communicative perspective (the perception end experience of online dangerous games), and trying to build a risk-taking predisposition model which took into consideration attitudes, social relationships and behaviours.
(Not aforementioned) references
Celsi R. L., R. L. Rose, and T. W. Leigh. 1993. ¿An exploration of high-risk leisure consumption through skydiving¿. Journal of Consumer Research 20 (1): 1¿24.
Cohen P. 1997. Rethinking the Youth Question. London: Macmillan.
Ewald F. 1986. L'état providence. Paris: Grasset
France A. 2010. ¿Towards a Sociological Understanding of Youth and their Risk-taking¿. Journal of Youth Studies 3 (3): 317-331.
Gillis J. 1974. Youth and History. New York: Academic Press.
Luhmann N. 1991. Soziologie des Risikos. Berlin: de Gruyte.
Lupton D., and J. Tulloch. 2002. ¿'Life would be pretty dull without risk': Voluntary risk-taking and its pleasures¿. Health, Risk & Society 4 (2):113-124.
Mead M. 1931. Growing Up in New Guinea. London: Routledge.
Plant M., and M. Plant. 1992. Risk Takers. London: Routledge
Springhall J. 1986. Coming of Age. London: Gill and MacMillan.
Stranger M. 1999. ¿The aesthetics of risk. A study of surfing¿ International Review for the Sociology of Sport 34 (3): 265¿276.