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"Active Aging," Media, and Communication

Mon, May 25, 9:00 to 10:15, Caribe Hilton, Flamingo A

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

All industrialized and more advanced countries are facing the “Demographic Change” of the population; it is a direct consequence of the simultaneously rise in life expectancy and of the decrease in birth rates, leading to a huge shift in the population structure and to a high prevalence of older people in the total number of citizens.
Ageing in western society has thus become a key issue in political and academic debate: politicians, sociologists, medical doctors, demographers, psychologists and economists are trying to understand how ageing will impact our future society.
According to the World Health Organization, active ageing is “the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age”. Its aim is to enable people to realize their potential for physical, social and mental well-being and to participate in social life also in the last stage of the life course.
In this framework, digital media and ICTs seem to be more and more relevant for the elderly, thanks to those services, devices and practices that could help people to grow old actively, improve their quality of life, be healthy and independent and get better assistance.
In order to promote effective evidence-based policies aimed at improving the quality of life of older people, empirical research is necessary to show whether and to what extent media technologies and ICTs really contribute to this goal.
Research in this field demands taking into account a bunch of intertwined factors: existing and transforming digital divides in access, uses and literacy between the elderly and the rest of the population and amongst the elder people as well; different media systems, quickly changing and forcing media uses and habits; demographic dynamics, such as the coming of age of the Boomers Generation and its “cohort effects” on values and lifestyle in 65+ age groups; the longer life of the elderly, with three to four generations in the family chain and new kinds of intergenerational relationships; public policies and marketing strategies addressed to the old people, in the frame of decreasing welfare, on the one hand, and their increasing attractiveness as commercial targets, on the other hand.
In order to understand if and how digital media actually contribute in establishing a better quality of life for elder people, the panel put together researches from different countries and established on different methodologies.

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