1 THE MEDIATIZATION OF FILIPINO YOUTH CULTURE A Review of Literature Gerry Lanuza Department of Sociology University of the Philippines, Diliman gerrylanuza@freemail.ph A. The Relevance of Youth Study In 1995 youth population constitutes eighteen percent of world population. In the same year it is estimated that there are 1.03 billion youth in the world. Eighty-four percent of these youths are found in developing countries ( National Youth Commission, 1998:4). In 1990 Asian region contained 64.3% of world’s youth population. It also represents 70% of global increase in the number of youth in the middle of the century (Xenos and Raymundo, 1999:99). Interestingly, according to 1995 national census, the age structure of Philippine population continues to be young (1995 Census of Population, Report No. 2:xxiii). 1 The age group between 15 and 24 constitutes twenty percent of the total population (14,857,326 of 75,037,00). These younger members of the population are considered as youth by the United Nations. Demographers tells us that what we have today is a “youth bulge” or “youth in transition” whose number will gradually decline in the future until it reaches 12.4% in 2075 (Xenos and Raymundo, 1999:6). Now, there are three general reasons for studying this younger age group (Fornas, 1995). First, is social and political reason. The youth are the bearers of traditions, 1 According to the 2000 NSO census the population of the Philippines as of May 1, 2000 is 76,498,735 persons. This represents an increase of 11.5 percent or 7.88 million persons over the 1995 census count of 68,616,536 persons. At the time of writing this paper the data on sex-age composition of the 2000 national population was not yet available.