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Ageist technologies, ageist societies? Understanding the discourse about old age and digital technologies in France
Type
conference speech
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper explores the representation of older people and their relationship with digital technologies in French mainstream media and professional debates during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Among other societal issues that the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed in recent years, the place of and the issue of care for older people has received significant attention from politicians, civil society organizations and professionals from the healthcare sector. The mainstream media played a significant role in highlighting the issue and French people have increasingly relied on them to inform themselves. The nature of the problem at hand is twofold. On the one hand, academics demonstrated how the pandemic has revealed the underlying ageism operating in industrial countries (Ayalon, 2020). Others alerted us to how it fostered the harmful ideology of techno-solutionism (Milan, 2020). However, only a few have attempted to examine these issues together (Gallistl et al., 2021).Moreover, the issue at stake goes beyond the pandemic. The population’s ageing has been framed as causing multiple problems on the political, economic and social level. Digital technologies are increasingly promoted as solutions to any type of ‘problems’ (Morozov, 2014). Yet, suggesting a digital answer to the societal challenge caused by the demographic transition is reductive and harmful for older people as well as their younger counterparts.
Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theoretical work on the representation of ‘the Other’, this paper is situated at the intersection of Critical Age Studies (Hazan, 1994; Katz, 1996) and Science and Technology Studies (Turkle, 2011). It builds on the combined analysis of 200 French mainstream media articles related to the subject of old age and ageing and a digital ethnography of five events which took place in 2021 and 2022. The selected events gathered stakeholders with a political, economic or technological perspective on the subject of old age and ageing with a national or European dimension.
Based on the analysis of this data, the paper argues that the French discourse about older people and digital technologies contribute to both ageist representations of old age and fallacious expectations towards technologies.
Among other societal issues that the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed in recent years, the place of and the issue of care for older people has received significant attention from politicians, civil society organizations and professionals from the healthcare sector. The mainstream media played a significant role in highlighting the issue and French people have increasingly relied on them to inform themselves. The nature of the problem at hand is twofold. On the one hand, academics demonstrated how the pandemic has revealed the underlying ageism operating in industrial countries (Ayalon, 2020). Others alerted us to how it fostered the harmful ideology of techno-solutionism (Milan, 2020). However, only a few have attempted to examine these issues together (Gallistl et al., 2021).Moreover, the issue at stake goes beyond the pandemic. The population’s ageing has been framed as causing multiple problems on the political, economic and social level. Digital technologies are increasingly promoted as solutions to any type of ‘problems’ (Morozov, 2014). Yet, suggesting a digital answer to the societal challenge caused by the demographic transition is reductive and harmful for older people as well as their younger counterparts.
Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theoretical work on the representation of ‘the Other’, this paper is situated at the intersection of Critical Age Studies (Hazan, 1994; Katz, 1996) and Science and Technology Studies (Turkle, 2011). It builds on the combined analysis of 200 French mainstream media articles related to the subject of old age and ageing and a digital ethnography of five events which took place in 2021 and 2022. The selected events gathered stakeholders with a political, economic or technological perspective on the subject of old age and ageing with a national or European dimension.
Based on the analysis of this data, the paper argues that the French discourse about older people and digital technologies contribute to both ageist representations of old age and fallacious expectations towards technologies.
Project(s)
Language
English
Event Title
ECREA 2022 9th European Communication Conference
Event Location
Aarhus University, Denmark
Event Date
19.10.2022 to 22.10.2022
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
268340