scholarly journals Older People’s Media Repertoires, Digital Competences and Media Literacies: A Case Study from Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 584
Author(s):  
Alessandra Carenzio ◽  
Simona Ferrari ◽  
Päivi Rasi

Digital media are part of everyday life and have an intergenerational appeal, entering older people’s agendas, practices, and habits. Many people aged over 60 years lack adequate digital competences and media literacies to support learning, well-being, and participation in society, thus imposing a need to discuss older people’s willingness, opportunities, and abilities to use digital media. This study explored older people’s media use and repertoires, digital competences, and media literacies to promote media literacy education across all ages. The article discusses the data from 24 interviews with older people aged 65 to 98 years in Italy to answer the following research questions: What kinds of media repertoires emerge? What kinds of competences and media literacies can be described? What kinds of support and training do older people get and wish to receive? The analysis of the data produced four specific profiles concerning media repertoires: analogic, accidental, digital-instrumental, and hybridised users. Media literacy is still a critical framework, but the interviewees were open to opportunities to improve their competences. The use of digital media has received a strong boost due to the pandemic, as digital media have been the only way to get in touch with others and carry out their daily routine.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysle Hood

In the digital age, technology and digital media shapes virtually every aspect of our lives. Poetry, which has seen a surprising revival in recent years, is no exception. One of the most popular contemporary poets today is Rupi Kaur, made famous for her verse posted on the social media platform Instagram. This MRP seeks to answer the following research questions: 1) In what ways has the digital age effected contemporary poetry? 2) What role has digital media played in shaping the success and formal elements of Rupi Kaur’s body of work? This MRP begins by offering a brief history of poetry’s relationship with media and an account of how poetry is produced and consumed in the digital age. The core of the MRP is a case study of contemporary Insta-poet Rupi Kaur. Through qualitative visual and textual analysis, the case study considers: 1) Kaur’s poetry, 2) her Instagram content, 3) her readership, and 4) the criticisms of her work. As to the discussion, the analysis of the four categories reveals


Author(s):  
Sarah-Mai Dang ◽  
Alena Strohmaier

Massive digitization makes histories appear as well as disappear. While digital archives facilitate the access to documents, recordings, films, and other s urces there is the risk that offlin sources get lost. Thus, the question about how digital collections are generated is essential for today’s film and media historians. Which artefacts are getting digitiz d – and which are not? In addition, for what reasons? Who is responsible for preserving historical material? Moreover, how can we access it? How can we make sense of the abundance of audio-visual sources, which are at the same time ephemeral? In this article, we analyse tools and methods useful for coping with digital archives and databases. Presenting a case study on the Syrian Archive, we discuss how concepts of authenticity and provenance relate to current media practices. We argue that besides posing productive research questions, conducting critical online search becomes more and more important in the humanities. Therefore, we examine not only what but also how the use of audio-visual material affects us. Furthermore, we argue that regarding the abundance of material the practice of curating – of selecting, structuring, and providing access – becomes a key activity in digital media practices.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-65
Author(s):  
Matthew Sansom ◽  
Zi Siang See

Park benches are distinctive public spaces that invite a temporary pause for thought and time out from everyday activities and worldly preoccupations. Park Bench Sojourn is a multimodal arts project that explores the uniqueness and universality of these spaces and the kinds of experiences they foster. It asks what it means to be human; surrounded, as we are, by computer technologies and digital media, living lives that are perpetually ‘connected’ and dispersed through the cloud. It reflects on how our technologically determined lives and lifestyles conspire against us to find opportunities to stop, reflect and be witnesses to lived experience. It is a conceptually playful creative work that shares concerns for health and well-being arising from the contemporary mindfulness movement and the traditional practices and worldviews upon which mindfulness draws. The project is based around a range of experiential sojourns, which require participants to find a bench to sit on and then take a sojourn, or a number of sojourns from the project’s website, which may include audio, video, spoken word, or just listening. Other iterations of the project have included a multimedia gallery installation juxtaposing content from a variety of sojourns. Regardless of the format, context or specific content, the project explores ways in which we ‘perform’ ourselves and mediate experience via digital technologies. In this article, we describe the process of translating this mediated and performative artwork into a VR prototype and directions for future work.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Orellana ◽  
Jill Manthorpe ◽  
Anthea Tinker

Abstract BACKGROUND Social prescribing is encouraged to promote well-being, reduce isolation and loneliness. Traditional, generalist day centres for older people could be suggested by social prescribing, but little is known about their clientele or their outcomes. As part of a larger study of the role, outcomes and commissioning of generalist English day centres for older people, the characteristics of attenders at four day centres, their reasons for attendance and outcomes were explored. METHODS This mixed-methods study used qualitative interviews and standardised tools within an embedded multiple-case study design. Semi-structured interviews with older day centre attenders (n=23, 62% of eligible attenders) of four day centres in south-east England, recruited purposively to reflect organisational differences, were analysed. RESULTS Participants reported non-elective withdrawal from socialisation following health or mobility decline, or losses. Apart from living arrangements and marital status, attenders’ profiles differed between centres. Access had been mostly facilitated by others. Day centre attendance enhanced quality of life for this group of socially isolated people with mobility restrictions and at risk of declining independence and wellbeing. The positive impact on attenders' social participation and involvement and on meaningful occupation was significant (p-value <0.001, 99% CI), with an average ASCOT gain score of 0.18. Ten outcome themes were identified. CONCLUSION Outcomes of day centre attendance are those targeted by social care and health policy. Centres were communities that ‘enabled’ and offset loss or isolation, thus supporting ageing in place through wellbeing and contributed something unique to their attenders’ lives. By monitoring attenders’ health and wellbeing and providing practical support, information and facilitating access to other services, centres offered added value. Attendance needs to be set in the context of other social engagement and care provision which may not overlap or duplicate centre support. Professionals may wish to explore the benefits of social prescriptions to day centres but should map local centres’ provision, engage with their organisers, and seek information on attenders, who may differ from those in this study.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Orellana ◽  
Jill Manthorpe ◽  
Anthea Tinker

Abstract BACKGROUND Social prescribing is encouraged to promote well-being, reduce isolation and loneliness. Traditional, generalist day centres for older people could be suggested by social prescribing, but little is known about their clientele or their outcomes. As part of a larger study of the role, outcomes and commissioning of generalist English day centres for older people, the characteristics of attenders at four day centres, their reasons for attendance and outcomes were explored. METHODS This mixed-methods study used qualitative interviews and standardised tools within an embedded multiple-case study design. Semi-structured interviews with older day centre attenders (n=23, 62% of eligible attenders) of four day centres in south-east England, recruited purposively to reflect organisational differences, were analysed. RESULTS Participants reported non-elective withdrawal from socialisation following health or mobility decline, or losses. Apart from living arrangements and marital status, attenders’ profiles differed between centres. Access had been mostly facilitated by others. Day centre attendance enhanced quality of life for this group of socially isolated people with mobility restrictions and at risk of declining independence and wellbeing. The positive impact on attenders' social participation and involvement and on meaningful occupation was significant (p-value <0.001, 99% CI), with an average ASCOT gain score of 0.18. Ten outcome themes were identified. CONCLUSIONS Outcomes of day centre attendance are those targeted by social care and health policy. Centres were communities that ‘enabled’ and offset loss or isolation, thus supporting ageing in place through wellbeing and contributed something unique to their attenders’ lives. By monitoring attenders’ health and wellbeing and providing practical support, information and facilitating access to other services, centres offered added value. Attendance needs to be set in the context of other social engagement and care provision which may not overlap or duplicate centre support. Professionals may wish to explore the benefits of social prescriptions to day centres but should map local centres’ provision, engage with their organisers, and seek information on attenders, who may differ from those in this study.


2014 ◽  
Vol 150 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Williamson

Special-interest titles represent a dynamic sector of the Australian magazine industry, yet few studies have been undertaken on them or their histories. Quilt-making titles serve as a case study of one of the most successful special-interest categories – craft – and special-interest magazines more generally. By tracing the evolution of magazines for quilters and by taking as its premise the rhetorical function of magazines in forming communities, this article illustrates the symbiotic interaction between publishing histories, including the exploitation of new technologies, and the sense of self engendered by magazines. In quilters' magazines, this sense of self is most recently pronounced in content describing the ‘modern quilter’, for whom digital media literacy is characteristic. The article's findings are used to advocate further research into the rhetorical and practical responses made by special-interest titles to a competitive publishing environment that is no longer dependent on paper-based delivery of content.


2021 ◽  
pp. 186810262198971
Author(s):  
Jackson Paul Neagli

This article explores a facet of the Chinese propaganda apparatus that has yet to receive sufficient academic attention: the murky ecosystem of “semi-official” party-state presences on Chinese social media. With a particular focus on WeChat public accounts, this investigation responds to two critical research questions: first, what differentiates official party-state social media presences from semi-official presences, and second, what unique role do semi-official WeChat accounts play in the contemporary Chinese propaganda apparatus? This article samples content published by five dyads of official and semi-official WeChat public accounts during the first fifteen days of June 2019. The results of this comparative, case-study-based discourse analysis support two conclusions. First, semi-official WeChat accounts posture as independent from the party-state in order to attract large followings and gain credibility. Second, semi-official WeChat public accounts operate as “astroturfed influencers,” enabling the Chinese propaganda apparatus to covertly manipulate online discourse with extraordinary efficiency.


Articult ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 152-178
Author(s):  
Ksenia K. Eltsova ◽  
◽  
Elena M. Yudina ◽  
◽  

The article examines the emergence of the concept of “poverty” in the mid-2010s in two digital publications considered to be flagships of the “urban” lifestyle media in Russia – “The Afisha.Daily” and “The Village”. The coming into discourses on success and well-being (including the financial one) of a concept that is hardly associated with success and well-being looks like a significant departure from the сanon of lifestyle media, and therefore it is important for a closer study. The analysis is done within theoretical and methodological framework of cultural and media studies; a combination of discourse-analysis’ methods and techniques is addressed for work with digital media texts. The results obtained allowed to determine ways of constructing of “poverty” and to identify discursive strategies by which it is instrumentalized in the media under investigation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysle Hood

In the digital age, technology and digital media shapes virtually every aspect of our lives. Poetry, which has seen a surprising revival in recent years, is no exception. One of the most popular contemporary poets today is Rupi Kaur, made famous for her verse posted on the social media platform Instagram. This MRP seeks to answer the following research questions: 1) In what ways has the digital age effected contemporary poetry? 2) What role has digital media played in shaping the success and formal elements of Rupi Kaur’s body of work? This MRP begins by offering a brief history of poetry’s relationship with media and an account of how poetry is produced and consumed in the digital age. The core of the MRP is a case study of contemporary Insta-poet Rupi Kaur. Through qualitative visual and textual analysis, the case study considers: 1) Kaur’s poetry, 2) her Instagram content, 3) her readership, and 4) the criticisms of her work. As to the discussion, the analysis of the four categories reveals


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