About the conference

The proliferation of new technologies around the globe is changing cultures and human behavior; the time people spend using electronic devices or social media shapes their identities and creates a new cultural space. Thus, it is important to analyze intercultural communication and language use in virtual spaces and examine how the cyber-culture influences, especially, youth. It is also argued that the 21st-century youth are social media beings, and therefore, the notions of interaction, language, and culture are often perceived differently. Social media continues to be a space where youth in the MENA region (the Middle East and North Africa) spend many hours a day interacting with people and revealing parts of their identity. Researchers argue that these virtual spaces contribute to constructing/deconstructing young people’s cultural values and self-identification depending on time, use, and purpose.