Cultural Hybridity in the Digital Age: Identity Negotiation among Gen Z in Transnational Spaces

This research investigates the complex processes of cultural hybridity and identity negotiation among Generation Z (born 1997-2012) navigating transnational spaces through digital platforms. Employing a mixed-methods approach combining digital ethnography, content analysis of 500 social media profiles, and in-depth interviews with 45 Gen Z individuals across five continents, the study reveals how digital affordances (connectivity, multimodality, algorithmic curation) fundamentally reshape cultural blending. Findings demonstrate that Gen Z actively constructs “digital third spaces” (Bhabha, 1994) online, engaging in sophisticated practices like algorithmic code-switching (strategically tagging/content creation for diverse audiences), remix culture as identity curation (sampling global pop culture with local signifiers), and platformed diaspora engagement (maintaining real-time connections with ancestral homelands). While digital tools facilitate fluid, self-determined hybrid identities challenging essentialist notions of culture, significant tensions emerge: the commodification of hybrid aesthetics by platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017), persistent digital divides shaping hybridity potential (Graham, 2021), and the psychological burden of perpetual identity performance (boyd, 2014). The study argues that digital cultural hybridity for Gen Z is not merely additive but transformative, fostering transnational subjectivities and novel forms of belonging, yet remains deeply embedded within structures of power and inequality.