Simone Carlo

Nuevos mayores, viejas brechas: TIC, desigualdad y bienestar en la tercera edad en Italia

When compared to more digitized western countries, Italy seems to have suffered a delay of ten years, in both the use of ICTs by the elderly and the study of the relation between elderly people, ICTs and ageing. Considering this time lapse, it is now urgent that we question the factors that influence the adoption of ICTs by the elderly and whether ICTs can provide cultural and relational resources that could improve the quality of life of elderly in terms of health and social life. This article describes the main findings of a survey carried out as part of a larger national research project focused on active ageing, which involved 900 Italian people aged between 65 and 74 years of age. The research investigates socio-demographic characteristics of young elderly Italian Internet users and factors related to their use of ICTs. Results have shown that there is a strong digital divide between young elderly Italians, which is primarly influenced ‐in terms of classical dynamics‐ by differences in economic, social and cultural capital. With regard to the theme of active ageing, if it is true that highly digitalized young elders are generally characterized by good health, at the present stage of this research it is not possible to indicate whether the adoption of ICTs guarantees social inclusion and participation.

Stay Tuned: The Role of ICTs in Elderly Life

Ageing in western society has become a key issue in political and academic debate: politicians, sociologists, doctors, demographers, psychologists, economists are trying to understand how ageing will impact our future society. In this frame, media and communication technologies seem to be more and more relevant for the elderly, thanks to those services and devices helping people to grow old actively. Technologies, the Internet and ICTs could help the elderly to improve their quality of life, to be healthy and independent and to get better assistance. Our ongoing research investigates the relationship between the elderly and use of technologies, and explores the role played by media and ICTs in building a friendly and positive environment for the elderly, and in constructing and maintaining social relations and promoting healthy ageing. Specifically, the research will investigate the use of ICTs by the elderly by taking into account two different perspectives: a) Exchanges between generations: lengthening of life corresponds to a longer period of cohabitation between at least three generations (grandparents, children, grandchildren), and also of co-use of digital media. The research wants to investigate relations between two age groups (grandparents and grandchildren; young people and older people) to understand the dynamics of intergenerational mutuality in the use of technologies and ICTs. b) Media, ICTs, Health: the Western world is increasingly populated by elderly population. Technologies and ICTs can help elderly people to improve their quality of life, to be healthy and independent and to get better assistance. ICTs should encourage active ageing and, in the case of health technologies, new models of care. The project, lasting 1 year, is based on (1) a survey on young elderly (65-74 yrs) population in Italy, and (2) a field-work which consists of family interviews and ethnographical sections in natural contexts.

Risk and Benefit Perceptions: Resistance, Adoption and Uses of ICT Among the Italian Elderly

This paper presents the main results of a national survey on active aging, with a sample of 900 Italians between 65 and 74 years of age. The research attempted to understand the role of ICT in the daily life of the elderly, in the attempt to answer the following questions: (1) What are the differences between the connected and not connected elderly? (2) What are the perceived risks and opportunities identified by older ICT users? This paper investigates the complex relationship between the elderly and technology, going beyond both deterministic approaches and optimistic analyses of the use (and non-use) of the Internet among elderly Italians.

Technology: A Bridge or a Wall? The Inter(intra)generational Use of ICTs Among Italian Grandmothers

Our research aims to investigate the role played by media and ICTs in building intergenerational and intragenerational relations for the grandparents. The project aims to understand how grandmothers use Facebook and digital devices (computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones) within the family and the friend networks, the role of communication technologies for entertainment and the resistance and difficulties in using ICT for elderly. Data for research analysis was collected through four focus groups conducted with 28 Italian grandmothers living in Milan, Italy.

La costruzione della fiducia nel web 2.0. Il caso delle truffe online

La digitalizzazione delle relazioni sociali operata dai social media e dalla rete, ha parzialmente rinnovato le regole attraverso cui si attribuisce fiducia a un interlocutore e il modo in cui queste vengono applicate sia nelle relazioni sociali sia nello scambio di beni. Nell’articolo si presenta l’analisi empirica di un luogo privilegiato di osservazione: i gruppi di auto aiuto di soggetti che hanno subito truffe online. La descrizione del momento in cui la fiducia viene carpita o tradita, infatti, consente di mettere in luce meccanismi attraverso cui e stata costruita e accordata. I risultati mostrano come siano cruciali competenza e benevolenza, ma anche l’uso di specifiche piattaforme che avvicinano in modo familiare gli interlocutori.

Health and Communication Guest Editors’ Foreword

Health communication is concerned with ‘the powerful roles performed by human and mediated communication in health care delivery and health promotion’ (Kreps et al. 1998). It is an extremely broad research area, examining many different levels and channels of communication in a wide range of social contexts. Following Thompson, Dorsey, Millet and Parrott (2003) one can didactically speak about three main spheres of influence in the case of communication and health: societal, expert discourse and lay discourse. At the same time, the levels for health communication analysis include intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational, and societal communication. In addition, health communication inquiry invol-ves examination of a broad range of communication channels, inclu-ding face-to-face and mediated communication between providers and receivers, among members of health care teams, and among patients (e.g., via support groups). As pointed out in a number of studies (Freimuth, Stein, Kean, 1989; Johnson, Meischke, 1993; Nelkin, 1995), health-related messages are effective devices of ‘social learning’, the people being able to learn what it means to be healthy with the help of media (Freimuth, Stein, Kean, 1989; DOI: 10.1515/irsr-2013-0007

Food Safety and Risk Communication: Cases History and Best Practices (in Avian Flu)

The paper discusses the role of institutional communication in the case of health risks and emergencies. The article is divided in three sections. The first section examines the most recent theories on risk and on its communicational aspect; the second analyses a recent state of emergency crisis, specifically the panic which stemmed from the perceived danger of an avian flu pandemic in Italy; and finally an example of best practice in the form of a food safety handbook designed and edited by the Italian Ministry of Rural Affairs, which was based on the skills and knowledge acquired during the avian flu emergency.

Italie : Une analogie avec l'espagne

Cet article constitue l’un des elements d’un dossier comparatif international sur le traitement mediatique de l’attentat survenu a la gare d’Atocha a Madrid en mars 2004. Centre sur l’Italie et base sur l’etude d’un corpus des quatre principaux quotidiens, il analyse les orientations du discours developpe par cette presse dans les jours qui ont suivi cet evenement. Il montre, qu’apres un moment de compassion devant les consequences dramatiques de l’attentat, ces titres se sont determines sur la base d’une analogie entre la situation politique espagnole et la situation italienne et ceci en raison des positions identiques de leurs gouvernements quant au conflit en Irak. Des divergences de tons et d’attitude sont observables entre ces differents journaux, mais on assiste globalement a une forme de banalisation et de « nationalisation » de l’evenement progressivement replie sur la scene nationale.