YouTube content and early Childhood education: debating the Algerian new Generation’s sociolinguistic Identity

Abstract

Abstract: New technologies and new media have powerfully guaranteed their hegemony in the world populations’ daily activities and social interactions, monopolizing thus the mutation of identity constructs and communities’ worldviews. In view of that, the issue of foreign language acquisition through digital media, its language, its content and its impact on new generation’s identity construction and self-esteem is of pertinence to the objective of the present research work. The latter intends to explore the impact of children YouTube channels on Algerian kids’ world concept and self-identification. Thereupon, the study adopts a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the sociolinguistic behaviors of a sample of informants, 3 to 9 years old children, consumers of YouTube content. It additionally consolidates its results with the consideration of parents’ opinions about the topic. Results show that digital media indispensability and YouTube videos content, as well as our children exposure to them, should be methodically and systematically supervised and monitored by parents and educators in order to discard the risk of cultural alienation and linguistic insecurity. Keywords: YouTube content; Algerian child; identity; linguistic capital; linguistic alienation