Social Science Forum: Issue 107
Narratives on Ageing and Media Use: Results of an Austrian Media Biographical Study
Christian Oggolder and Caroline Roth-Ebner
Abstract: Examining how digitalisation impacts media use, this study focuses on older people, who make up an ever-bigger share of the population. The paper looks at the role of media in older people’s biographies and their perception of technological change. Media-biographical interviews were conducted with 21 individuals aged 60+ years to answer these questions. Findings reveal the dominance of traditional media (TV, newspapers, radio) along with the growing use of digital technologies, notably smartphones as a vital daily medium. The effects of digitalisation on older individuals are ambivalent. While on one hand they feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the applications, on the other they also benefit from advantages like the low-threshold information and communication options. The study shows that different ways of dealing with the challenges of digitalisation exist – from learning from the younger generation through to resilience.
Key words: mediatisation of everyday life, digitalisation, media biographies, media use of older individuals, perception of media change, media-biographical interviews, Austrian study
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Gender scripts in the old age subjectivation of men: A theoretical pledge through empirics
Renata Šribar
Abstract: The article is based on a research study and uses less well-known conceptual and analytical tools. It focuses on the divergent gendering of older and old
men from the perspective of the public/private divide. Preliminary research shows the greater presence of men at home and more care work, while women are becoming more active in the public. For the research on the hypothetical alternative of gendered old age, a target group of the highly educated and/or well professionally skilled older and old men was constituted. All of them possess above-average social and cultural capital. The results show familial involvement
already during the employment period, and a perceptible presence in public life after retirement. Nevertheless, the research pointed to the hidden mechanisms
of hegemonic masculinity, which could add to the theoretical deconstruction of gender hierarchies.
Key words: older/old men, gender divide, transdisciplinary approach, “analytical engine”, categorical complexities
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The USA and limits on women's reproductive autonomy: Creating class differentiation by restricting contraception access (before Dobbs)
Lilijana Burcar
Abstract: Liberal feminist movements primarily focus on women’s right to abortion, while neglecting restrictions and structural barriers that prevent women from accessing contraception in systems that do not offer (full) health insurance coverage. Based on systemic analysis and a historical-materialist approach, the article sheds light on different stages of limiting access to contraception for working poor and impoverished women in the USA as embedded in ACA and Title X programmes. Denying or restricting working poor and impoverished women’s access to full or at least subsidised contraception coverage leads to class differentiation among women in their ability to exercise their right to family planning and reproductive autonomy. In the wake of Dobbs, this holds new sinister implications and consequences for low-income and poor women’s right to reproductive freedom.
Key words: USA, contraception, reproductive autonomy, class differentiation
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Deep automation of inequality as a self-sustaiing and self-fulfiling process: The example of binarism and sexism
Tadej Praprotnik
Abstract: Datafication is simultaneously becoming a means and a goal of modern marketdriven uses of technologies. The optimisation of the “consumer experience”
shapes a data-driven consumer subject, which does not encompass all practices and identities. The article aims to problematise datafication, which overlooks complex “citizen experiences” that also include gender and sexual identity. At the same time, former and existing gender inequalities remain fundamental learning
data, based on which algorithms and artificial intelligence generate models of future sociality. We encounter at least three interconnected types of inequality
(on the levels of culture, data and technologies) that can create a self-sustaining and self-learning process that reproduces future inequalities.
Key words: datafication, deep automation of mediatized culture, gender equality, gender identity, sexual identity, artificial intelligence, algorithms
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Book Reviews
Marko Ribać
Slavko Splichal: Datafication of public opinion and the public sphere: How estraction replaced expression of opinion.London, New York: Anthem Press, 2022.
Igor Jurekovič
Maca Jogan: Na dvorišču poganov: katoliška cerkev in družbeno zlo
Ljubljana: Založba FDV, 2023.
Gorazd Kovačič
Ana Podvršič: Iz socializma v periferni kapitalizem: Neoliberazlizacija Slovenijie.
Ljubljana: Založba /*cf., 2023.
Tinca Lukan
Ole Nymoen in Wolfgang M. Schmitt: Vplivneži: Ideologija oglaševalnih teles.Ljubljana: Krtin, 202. Prevod: Marko Bratina