Interfacing age:Diversity and (in)visibility in digital public service

This article revisits the concepts of ‘diversity’ and ‘visibility’, from the perspective of age relations to consider how these key metrics in the assessment of social inclusion through media representation can be usefully applied to the analysis of digital public service interfaces. Against the backdrop of changes in the age composition of populations, and an expanding role of digital media in ‘digital by default’ public service provision age remains a neglected dimension of social inequality in media and communications research. This article investigates questions of diversity and social inclusion in old age drawing on a study of visual imagery in public sector websites in the United Kingdom. The analysis integrates insights from media, technology studies, communications policy and critical social gerontology. We identify three patterns in visual imagery: (1) stereotypical representations of group membership as homogenous in terms of age groups, sex, health status and ethnicity, with older adults typically represented as white, (un)healthy men or women; (2) new visibilities, of older adults as socially and culturally diverse groups; and (3) new approaches to inclusive digital service design where age becomes an invisible social demographic. We discuss implications for policy and research into diversity, digitalization and digital public service interfaces

Становлення радянської етногенетики (в світлі глотогонічної теорії М. Марра)

Television was an everyday reality for millions of people at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and arguably remains one of the most important features of media-related leisure. It provides a fertile conceptual and empirical starting point for the exploration of the everyday leisure experiences of media audiences. In this article, contemporary meanings and experiences of television are examined on three dimensions, namely the practices of (watching) television, television and the understanding of everydayness, and the experience of television itself. The emerging meanings and experiences of TV in the digital age are contrasted with the continuities and momentum of more traditional forms of watching and understanding television. Differences were found among the four different age groups (younger adults, middle-aged adults, older adults and elderly) studied, as were important similarities among people belonging to the same age group. The notion and experience of television are being transformed in the digital age, and televisual leisure opportunities appear inserted both in a transforming media ecosystem and in the everyday life of people. The article argues that it is in the contested, negotiated and complex domains of leisure experience and generational belonging that we should continue to explore the notion(s) of television by using new epistemological approaches. This will help us to understand not only its contemporary but also its future status

Designing Meaningful Intergenerational Digital Games

ABSTRACT This paper will focus on intergenerational digital games between grandparents and their grandchildren, which could enhance not only their physical and social well-being but also social bonding between them. This is a topic which has been neglected in digital game research. Therefore, after having discussed the relevance of intergenerational relations the paper will present empirical studies in this field. Then, attention will be paid to (1) the motivation of younger and older adults to play digital games and (2) the impact of age-related difficulties on playing digital games. Finally, the implications for the design of intergenerational digital games will be sketched

The Role of Mobility Digital Ecosystems for Age-Friendly Urban Public Transport:A Narrative Literature Review

Within the context of the intersection of the global megatrends of urbanisation, ageing societies and digitalisation, this paper explores older people’s mobility, with a particular interest in public transport, and a strong consideration of digital/ICT elements. With a focus on (smart) mobility, the paper aims to conceptualise transport, one of the main domains of age-friendly cities as a core element of a smart, age-friendly ecosystem. It also aims to propose a justice-informed perspective for the study of age-friendly smart mobility; to contribute towards a framework for the evaluation of age-friendly smart transport as a core element of the global age-friendly cities programme that comprises mobility practices, digital data, digital networks, material/physical geographies and digital devices and access; and to introduce the term “mobility digital ecosystem” to describe this framework. The paper uses the method of a narrative literature review to weave together a selected range of perspectives from communications, transport, and mobility studies in order to introduce the embeddedness of both communication technology use and mobility practices into their material conditions. Combining insights from communications, mobility and transport and social gerontology with a justice perspective on ICT access and mobility, the paper then develops a framework to study age-friendly smart mobility. What we call a “mobility digital ecosystem” framework comprises five elements—mobility practices, digital data, digital networks, material geographies, digital devices and access to services. The paper contributes a justice-informed perspective that points towards a conceptualisation of age-friendly smart mobility as a core element of the age-friendly cities and communities in the WHO’s global age-friendly cities programme

Older audiences in the digital media environment: A cross-national longitudinal study: Wave 2 v1.0

Involving teams from seven countries (Austria, Canada, Denmark, Israel, Netherlands, Romania, and Spain) this Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT) project offers a unique opportunity to explore possible processes of displacement of traditional dominant media by innovative communication practices within the older audience of new media. Replicating Nimrod’s (2017) study of older audiences, data will be collected on a biannual basis over a five-year period (overall three waves). This report outlines the results from the second wave of the study, highlighting comparisons to the previous waves data. The data on the report is based on surveys from Internet users aged 60 and up, who responded to the previous wave as well

Титульні сторінки та зміст

This exploratory qualitative study provides insight into the role that exergames can play for seniors. Fifteen participants (aged 53–78) engaged in playing Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2 on the Xbox 360 Kinect. We conducted semi-structured interviews with each participant and we found that in all cases, their innate psychological needs of autonomy and competence (Self Determination Theory) were met. Playing the exergame not only served as a serious therapeutic instrument with positive effects on the subjective physical and social wellbeing, but it also brought entertainment, providing excitement and fun

The marketing of technology products for older people: Evidence of visual ageism

Visual ageism is “the social practice of visually underrepresenting older people or misrepresenting them in a prejudiced way”. In this chapter, we explore the visual portrayals of older adults in advertising and marketing strategies for technological products. We use a systematic literature review on research conducted during the past ten years (2011–2021), exploring empirical studies in which visual representations of older adults were mentioned. Four scientific databases were used: Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct and ProQuest, and three sets of keywords: advertisements and technology; older people and technology advertisements, and older people and stereotypes in advertising to select the final corpus of analysis. We explore the presence of visual ageism – underrepresentation, stereotypical representations, and roles played by older adults when they are visually represented in connection with technology and also how these visual portrayals are different on different technological products. Older adults tend to be less present in advertisements regarding technology products, as compared to other domains, for example, health products. When they are visually present in technology-related advertisements and marketing strategies, older people are associated with older technological products and the mechanic ones (for example, automotive) and, to a lesser extent, associated with the new technology. Also, the findings indicated that we face stronger visual ageism in the case of older women compared to older men. The current investigation opens the discussion on further developments in exploring visual ageism in the case of technology products. The role of some contextual aspects, the importance of technology in different countries, and the technological history, as well as the different models of aging, might shape visual representations of older adults in the content of the advertisements. Equally important is to investigate older persons' perceptions of the visual content in which technology is represented in association with different age groups

Not only people are getting old, the new media are too: Technology generations and the changes in new media use

This article investigates the changes in the use of traditional and new media by different technology generations. Focusing on the changes in the use of Email, Chat and Social Network Sites by older people, it explores the process by which new media become ‘old’ and reach a saturation point. Collected survey data suggest differences in media use between the three technology generations distinguished in this study: the ‘mechanical’ generation (born in 1938 or before), the ‘household revolution’ generation (born between 1939 and 1948), and the ‘technology spread’ generation (born between 1949 and 1963). This longitudinal and transnational study provides evidence of media saturation, showing that an increase in both the availability of and access to media does not lead to an increase in use, even in older adults who are behind in the adoption of the new media. Finally, the article discusses the findings, arguing for an interplay between individual and structural lag in later life

Using Media Literacy to Fight Digital Fake News in Later Life: A Mission Impossible?

Fake news is a threat to the trustworthiness of digital information sources. Media literacy training that can be used to empower people to fight fake news - understood to refer to any kind of misleading information that could mistakenly be considered accurate, regardless of the mechanisms that led to its propagation [1] - is mostly oriented toward younger people in an educational institutional context. Yet in later life, older people, too, may benefit from such training. Are there appropriate institutions to provide this? In this paper we explore the possibility of enhancing older people’s digital resilience [2] using insights from the field of media literacy to answer the following research questions: 1. To what extent are older people vulnerable to fake news? 2. To what extent are older people able to learn to become digitally resilient? 3. What institutions could play a role in providing media literacy training specifically tailored for older people? Finally, we will present some implications for future research in this field

A critical perspective on the mediatization of brain imaging and healthy ageing

Since the invention of functional brain imaging in the early 1990s, this instrumentally and computationally expensive methodology has captured our interests in visualizing the working mind, especially that of super-ageing brains. Because neuroimaging research is costly, various communication strategies are deployed to increase its visibility and fundraising success. Through a historical perspective on the representation of healthy ageing in the media, we examine the methods of communication (media logic) and the cultural interdependencies between media, research institutions, and health funding politics (mediatization), which magnify the profile of brain imaging in advancing the science of healthy ageing. Examples of hyped messaging about healthy-ageing brains underline the risk of visual ageism — a prejudiced and stereotypical view of what a good or bad older brain looks like. We argue that hyped mediatization can alienate older adults from participating in a line of research that might stigmatize them