This study explores adolescent reasoning behind the use of alcohol at different types of parties, often house parties, and about the strategies to achieve maturity and prevent losing control. The data consist of semi-structured interviews with 23 adolescents aged 16–18 years (16 males and seven females). The interview transcripts were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach. All informants had personal experience with drinking at parties in different social settings. Our results suggest that the process of learning how to drink, often through failure in terms of being intoxicated, is important for adolescents’ who strive to control their alcohol intake resulted in a good time and a break from everyday life. Furthermore, the results indicate that different social settings and party types engender different drinking patterns. Maturity and controlled conduct come across as desired ideals that provide a person with symbolic capital and thus, social status.
During the last decade, numerous studies of the internet's civic dimensions have taught us a considerable amount about the form of new technologies. They have, for instance, analysed how the internet's interactive character, its multimodality and its open character create civic opportunities, not least for young people. The field has, however, rather neglected a number of important issues. For instance, the category of 'producers' of civic content has received little attention. Hence, research has neglected questions such as the following. What interests inspire producers of civic websites? How is the production being carried through? What views of the internet inspire their work? This article begins to redress this neglect by analysing the producers of three different websites. The three websites are brought from different spheres of civil society - party politics, commercial media and activism - and they are analysed through producer interviews. The article reveals and critically discusses differences and similarities between different modes of producing civic web resources.