Abstract

This paper establishes the state of the art of the Italian social research on the connection between youth and popular music. The author starts by providing a critical approach to the social construction of categories such as "youth", "young people", "teenagers", "music of the young" a.s.o., and their strong connection with moral panics. Then, the author presents and compares the various different approaches that have been adopted in the studies in youth and popular music in Italy. By offering a diacronic presentation of the different research issues, the author shows the prevalence of a quantitative approach which isn't able to account for the complex connection between consumption and construction of the meaning, thus calling for a more useful qualitative approach, such as the ethno-graphic research.