Aging, Media, and Communication

This paper approaches the relationship among elderly, media and communication in four steps: in the first place I try to explain how the ageing of society progressively represents a central topic in both the political and the scientific debate, so to demonstrate the reason lying beyond the increased interest for this issue. Secondly, I briefly analyze the main trends characterizing the relation between elderly and ICT, to which an increasing number of researches are devoted. My aim is to question the critical aspects they put forth, especially as far as the risk of simplification that the debate on the generational digital divide might feed is concerned. Thirdly, I present an analytic perspective apt to inform the research effort dealing with the topic “elderly” and communication, which is based on both the public discourse about elderly and addressed to them. This analysis enable me to highlight on the one hand the negotiation and the social construction characterizing the old age, and on the other the role the institutional and commercial public discourses play in the definition of a model for the contemporary elderly. Finally, I focus on the discourses about media produced by elderly individuals through the media themselves, paying particular attention to they way the use and think ICTs. My conclusion question the compatibility between the model of elderly subjects designed by the public discourse and the real elderly, as their communicative acts portray them.