The American Ghetto, Gangster, and Respect on the Streets of Copenhagen: Media(tion)s between Structure and Street Culture

Hakan Kalkan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

“Street culture” is often considered a response to structural factors. However, the relationship between culture and structure has rarely been empirically analyzed. This article analyzes the role of three media representations of American street culture and gangsters—two films and the music of a rap artist—in the street culture of a disadvantaged part of Copenhagen. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork, this article demonstrates that these media representations are highly valuable to and influential among young men because of their perceived similarity between their intersectional structural positions and those represented in the media. Thus, the article illuminates the interaction between structural and cultural factors in street culture. It further offers a local explanation of the scarcely studied phenomenon of the influence of mass media on street culture, and a novel, media-based, local explanation of global similarities in different street cultures.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Contemporary Ethnography
Volume51
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)407-434
Number of pages28
ISSN0891-2416
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

Keywords

  • disadvantaged neighborhoods
  • gangsta rap
  • gangster movies
  • media reception
  • street culture

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