Papers by Roser Beneito-Montagut
Routledge eBooks, May 25, 2023
Ageism functions as a key concept to understand how older age is socially produced and the reason... more Ageism functions as a key concept to understand how older age is socially produced and the reasons for older people's devalued social status. In its production, there are social imaginaries that particularly relate to being old (Baltes & Smith, 2003; Gilleard & Higgs, 2018) and their interest, ability and skills to use technologies (Gilleard et al., 2015). Social imaginaries of ageing are a set of values, norms, institutions, policies and cultures that society produces and apply to old age. At least two imaginaries are configuring the contemporary notions of old age (Laslett, 1994). On the one hand, an optimistic and positive image associated with a Third Age that is typically enacted in active and healthy ageing ideas. This imaginary supports the idea that the s. XXI older people are technogenarians (Joyce and Loe, 2010; Mort et al., 2013), or people who are competent in the use of technologies, have full access to them and can even be considered technological "innovators" (Östlund, 2011; Peine et al., 2014). This imaginary questions the stereotype of seniors as technological laggards, and by contrast, defines the second imaginary. This is associated with the notion of the Fourth Age, which defines later life as gloomy and unhealthy, and characterised by institutionalised, dependent and disengaged older people. The old-old are usually considered uninterested in technology, unable to use them due to their frail condition or their outdated skills. The technogenarians studied before are often the "economically privileged baby boomers" (i.e., Joyce & Loe, 2010; Neven, 2015) that better enact the technological and active ageing imaginaries, typical of the Third Age (Gilleard & Higgs, 2013). During recent years, gerontechnology research has been interested in uncovering the imaginaries of ageing produced in the design and use of digital technologies (Loe, 2010; López et al., 2010; Neven, 2010), including the forms of ageism these imaginaries naturalise that, as a result, exclude older people (e.g., Joyce & Loe, 2011). Recent literature on the latter aspect follows the premise that there is a corresponding complex relationship between ageism and technology (Cutler, 2005). It spans interrelated areas regarding tech
SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, 2023
The Sociological Review
In the last 10 years there has been an increase in access to information and communication techno... more In the last 10 years there has been an increase in access to information and communication technologies among older people, stimulated by widespread adoption of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). At the same time, digital inclusion policies and training programmes continue to develop to increase the access to the digital society for this social group. In this context, it is pertinent to revisit a long-standing research question about how older adults use and learn to use these technologies in their everyday lives while paying attention to how their subjectivities and their knowledge are situated in the collective shared knowledge of digital practices. Using examples taken from a digital team ethnographic study exploring social media use in later life, this article delves into how learning digital practices and affective relations assemble and what they do to older people’s subjectivities. Their engagements show how these practices are illustrative of the relevance of social c...
SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, 2023
The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design
Social Media + Society
Older adults are increasingly using smartphones. Researchers have identified demographic, attitud... more Older adults are increasingly using smartphones. Researchers have identified demographic, attitudinal factors and social outcomes related to inequalities in access, skills, and activities of internet use. While this research has been ongoing for years, studies about the digital inequalities related to the use of smartphones by older adults are still scarce, and they rarely have undertaken sociocultural comparisons of usage. This article builds on an analysis of tracking data of older adults’ (pp. 55–79) smartphone use, to explore digital inequalities around traditional axes of inequality and sociocultural factors that shape older adults’ smartphone use. It adds a comparative perspective for understanding emerging inequalities related to sociocultural contexts to the existing literature. The results show that differences cannot be explained solely by sociodemographic factors, but also possibly by national policies and culture. Particularly, age, on its own, is not able to explain the...
La introduccion de Internet en la sociedad, como tecnologia de la informacion y la comunicacion, ... more La introduccion de Internet en la sociedad, como tecnologia de la informacion y la comunicacion, esta reordenando nuestro campo de accion e interaccion en todas las esferas publicas. Desde las dos ultimas decadas, las tecnologias de la comunicacion redefinen la experiencia humana. El binomio formado por el ordenador y el telefono, ha creado una maquina de comunicacion con una estructura hipertextual, pluridireccional, capaz de ser interactiva y basada en las posibilidades del tratamiento digital de la informacion. En el campo del arte, las relaciones entre la practica artistica y los medios de comunicacion se han hecho cada vez mas patentes. La practica artistica viene incorporando los nuevos medios, y tambien los sistema de telecomunicacion -el correo, el telefono, la television e Internet. Las nuevas propuestas que surgen en este contexto generan transformaciones en la definicion de la obra de arte. Es a partir de la popularizacion de Internet, en la decada de los noventa, cuando ...
International Journal of Cultural Studies
There is a growing interest in using social media and digital platforms as allies to strengthen s... more There is a growing interest in using social media and digital platforms as allies to strengthen social support among the aged. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and observations of 21 people in their 80s, the article foregrounds the multiple and intersecting temporalities of informal mediated care practices in later life through an exploration of the wide range of infrastructures on which they rely, from social media platforms to housing and urban infrastructure. We identify four temporalities of mediated informal care to assert the need to problematize the future-oriented temporalities of new caring media. The article paves the way to consider infrastructures of informal care as making time in multiple forms, irrespective of their newness or oldness, or the futures that every new piece of technology and service may potentially bring to our present.
She is a member of the Digital Sociology Research Group (DSrG) and was a member of Cardiff Online... more She is a member of the Digital Sociology Research Group (DSrG) and was a member of Cardiff Online Social Media Observatory (COSMOS). She is also associated with the Care and Preparedness in the Network Society (Carenet) research group at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute in the Open University of Catalonia (Spain). She is interested in digital ethnographic projects and also excited about the critical exploration of the possibilities that the use of what is being called "big data" has opened up for social researchers to better understand what is going on in society. Her current research focuses on how social media "affects" everyday life social relationships and everyday life mediated affects (and emotions). She is particularly interested in studying social media experience in later life, the emerging notions of care in digital societies and social isolation. During the past years she has conducted research in interdisciplinary settings, working with computer scientists, engineers and social scientists. She was a research fellow in a EU funded project (Disaster 2.0) enquiring the role of Social Media and its adoption by public sector organizations for risk and crisis communication. More recently, she was PI in a research project studying social media use in later life and she is currently co-investigator on an international research project entitled "Being Connected at Home: Making use of digital devices in later life". Her research has been funded by a number of organizations and has been published in several peer-refereed journals, such as Qualitative Research and Sociological Perspectives.
The possibility of crowdsourced information, multi-geographical and multi-organisational informat... more The possibility of crowdsourced information, multi-geographical and multi-organisational information flows during emergencies and crisis provided by social media is facing emergency managers with new communication challenges and opportunities. Building on the literature about risk communication and social media and based on interviews with experts from six European countries this article explores how governmental agencies are using social media in emergency situations. The research gives answer to which risk communication functions do SM support. Risk communication has used traditional media (TV, news papers, radio) to communicate with the public. The public is massively using social media, and social media allows a two-way communication between agencies and public, and across agencies. Today it is difficult for authorities to be the first informer as there is always somebody with a mobile phone ready to take a picture and tweet it. When communities are at risk disorganised behaviou...
This exploratory paper argues that treating older adults learning as “representational knowledge”... more This exploratory paper argues that treating older adults learning as “representational knowledge” acquisition is not adequate if we want to understand how they learn to use digital technologies in general, and social media technologies in particular. Using examples taken from an ethnographic study exploring social media use in later life, the case is made for a range of digital practices and affective relations through which learning happens. The idea of communities of practice is a useful approach, however it also needs to be expanded to account for the practices that happened outside of the social and cultural centers and outside of the groups of interest formed around the interests in digital technologies. It is also useful to answer the question of how and why particular forms of “pedagogical authority” are enacted through particular digital practices, which are highly relational and affective, and how these forms of expertise become identity traits. We further discuss the impli...
This paper particularly investigates the affective relationships that participants maintain onlin... more This paper particularly investigates the affective relationships that participants maintain online and how caring relationships are built in online contexts, with a particular focus on social media and mobile technologies. Through the analysis of these types of relationships online we explore how quotidian acts of (i)organisation (micro-organisation); (ii) online sharing and civic participation (interests, hobbies, political views, and so on), and (iii) caring interactions contribute to building a sense of being copresent through social media. Finally, we define more closely the particular kind of affective relationships that we have called caring relationships.
Today we can find healthcare, lifestyle and well-being applications – for smartphones, tablets, w... more Today we can find healthcare, lifestyle and well-being applications – for smartphones, tablets, wearable devices - for a plethora of aspects: from monitoring pregnancy to checking on blood pressure. These apps are used in our everyday life and not only in medical settings. They hold the promise of enhancing, managing, predicting and improving our individual health and healthcare services. Anyone with a smartphone can share personal health related data with healthcare services and companies, as well as other organisations and individuals. While people use these applications social media companies harvest, archive and manage huge amounts of data –aka big data. These two issues – people sharing personal data and the harvest of these data – have serious implications for the way in which research on human subjects can be undertaken and for the ethical frameworks that regulate such research. Key concerns are privacy, anonymity and data management. This talk focuses on the ethical implicat...
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Papers by Roser Beneito-Montagut
particularly affect later life. They have been the subject of many recent studies. Studies examining the role of
the internet in addressing these problems have multiplied. However, it is still not known whether internetmediated
social interaction has any role in mitigating social isolation and or loneliness. To address this gap,
the purpose of this paper is to review previous research that investigates the relationship between internet
use for communication and social isolation and loneliness.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews the empirical literature published since 2000 and
expands on previous literature reviews by including a variety of research designs and disciplines.
Findings – Despite the recent increase in studies, there is still little evidence to show internet effects on social
isolation and loneliness. It is concluded that future research programmes aimed at reducing them by the use
of the internet should include more robust methodological and theoretical frameworks, employ longitudinal
research designs and provide a more nuanced description of both the social phenomena (social isolation and
loneliness) and internet-mediated social interaction.
Originality/value – Previous reviews are not restricted to internet-based studies and include several types of
interventions aiming at reducing social isolation and/or loneliness. They do not attempt to disentangle the
internet effects of social isolation and loneliness.