Discourses of technology, ageing and participation

Abstract

The proliferation of digital technology has brought about rapid social and economic change, the consequences of which have not been evenly distributed. Older people, in particular, tend to be less engaged with digital technology and as a result, are said to be at risk of 'digital exclusion'. In this paper, we explore how digital technology is discursively linked to ageing and social and economic participation. The analysis is based on 38 interviews with representatives of industry, government and civil society asked to share their views of the opportunities and risks associated with age and participation in the context of rapid developments in digital technology. Using discourse analysis we identify two competing ways interview participants made connections between digital technology and its perceived effects on the economic and social participation of an ageing population. In the first, digital technology drives human progress as a 'fix' to some of the social and economic challenges associated with ageing but also demands a cautious approach to minimise unforeseen negative consequences. In the second, digital technology is a tool, whose development can be driven by humans in order to solve a range of problems, including economic and social participation in later life. We consider the implications of these two discourses, discussing the potential of each for achieving a sense of empowerment in the ageing community and addressing the challenge of lifelong participation.

Tracing Environmental Sustainability Discourses: An Australia-Asia Seafood Case Study

“…The analysis focused particularly on the environmental sustainability of the industry. Linking the two methods of qualitative coding and discourse analysis follows Fleming et al (2018), which coded key concepts and language use at the sentence level. The analysis identified key themes present in the text (interviews and media content) and organized into codes.…”

The challenges of rural family physician program in Iran: a discourse analysis of the introduction to criticizing power imbalance between rural health and mainstream urban health

“…Some discourses are awarded higher authority by certain cultural groups and are perceived as having greater legitimacy (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002). These dominant discourses are more often than not normalized as common sense (such as normative urban healthcare models), whereas other discourses are marginalized or disdained (such as alternative knowledges) (Fleming et al 2018). In the rural health sector, the relations of power, through normative urban healthcare, construct dominant discourses that align with deficits, disadvantages, and inferior discourses, all of which can normalize certain actions and health practices as acceptable, guiding people to act accordingly Bourke 2016, 2018).…”

Narrative Review: Technologies in Eldercare

“…The concept incorporates a heterogeneous group of welfare technologies (Hofmann 2013) related to AT and ambient assistive living. The discourse around welfare technology implies that the increased use of technology will be a win-win for society (Dugstad et al 2015, Fleming, Mason, andPaxton 2018), as it targets older people, who have a higher risk of falling, developing chronic diseases (e.g. dementia), and suffering from social isolation, depression, poor well-being, and/or poor medication management (Yusif, Soar, and Hafeez-Baig 2016).…”

“…Technology is never simply present as an instrument but, rather, as a mediating object between human-and-human and human-and-artefact (Latour 2005a). The unquestioned acceptance of technology use in eldercare might obscure the process of normalisation-that is, the consideration of alternatives that prefigure the translation of ideas, materials, and approaches into categories of good and bad technologies in eldercare (Fleming, Mason, and Paxton 2018). We aim to address the aforementioned research questions, to identify new ones that can serve as input for future research on technology in eldercare, and to highlight the success factors and approaches that have the potential to positively impact the implementation of technologies in eldercare.…”