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Researching new media and social diversity in later life

Article in New Media & Society · August 2016

DOI: 10.1177/1461444816663949

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Cecilie Givskov Mark Deuze

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To  cite  this  article:    

Givskov,  C  &  Deuze,  M  2016,  'Researching  New  Media  and  Social  Diversity  in  Later  
Life'  New  Media  &  Society.  Published  online  16  August  2016.  DOI:  
10.1177/1461444816663949  
  
Researching  new  media  and  social  diversity  in  later  life  

Cecilie  Givskov  
University  of  Copenhagen,  Denmark  

Mark  Deuze  
University  of  Amsterdam,  The  Netherlands  

Introduction  
Older  people  constitute  the  fastest  growing  group  in  the  population  of  developed  
1
societies  that  is  highly  diverse  in  terms  of  economic,  social  and  cultural  resources.  
They  are  also  the  fastest  growing  segment  of  users  of  Internet,  social  media  and  
smartphones  worldwide  (Eurostat,  2015;  Saul,  2014;  Smith,  2014).  People  orient  
themselves  to  post-­‐retirement  life,  old  age  and  later-­‐life  identities  in  different  ways  
and  work  through  different  types  of  (economic,  social,  cultural)  exclusion  in  society  
while  navigating  their  roles,  opportunities,  wants  and  needs  in  all  of  this  in  media.  A  
task  for  media  scholars  is  to  find  ways  to  correspondingly  theorize  and  analyse  older  
people’s  lives  in  media,  whereas  ageing  studies  need  to  align  themselves  with  
developments  in  media  theory  in  order  to  adequately  assess  the  comprehensively  
mediatized  life  people  are  leading  today.  
Within  media  studies,  the  concern  for  later  life  has  generally  been  translated  into  
research  on  digital  divides,  and  into  the  role  of  digital  media  in  compensating  for  
physical,  mental  and  social  dependencies.  Embedded  in  such  studies  is  a  generally  
progressive  narrative,  either  by  complicating  the  role  media  play  in  life  or  by  working  
through  scenarios  of  how  media  can  contribute  to  alleviating  (real  or  perceived)  
problems  in  later  life.  The  diversity  in  lived  experience  of  older  people  in  the  new  
media  environment  constitutes  a  blind  spot  in  current  research  (Hagberg,  2012;  
Quinn,  2014;  Richardson  et  al.,  2011).  We  address  this  research  lacuna  by  asking  what  
future  directions  for  research  on  older  people  and  their  media  lives  could  be  by  
bringing  into  conversation  emerging  perspectives  from  social  stratification  studies,  
ageing  studies  and  media  and  communication  studies.  Our  review  suggests  that  
exploring  media  use  on  an  everyday  level  sensitive  to  social  and  cultural  differences  
among  older  people  would  be  a  critical  step  to  take  in  order  to  qualify  studies  on  
digital  and  social  inequality,  their  possible  interconnections  and  supposed  
consequences  for  the  quality  of  later  life.  We  will  outline  three  major  pitfalls  and  
promises  in  existing  research  on  older  people’s  media  use  and  role  in  society  in  order  
to  identify  what  we  see  as  ways  of  theorizing  and  studying  older  people’s  lives  in  
media  that  do  justice  to  their  prominent  and  differentiated  position  in  society:  

1. Cultural  approaches  to  social  diversity  and  inequality  in  order  to  move  beyond  
reducing  difference  to  economic  indicators;  
 2. Life  course  perspective:  linking  mediatization  and  other  historical  trends  with  
biographical  experiences  in  order  to  move  beyond  homogenizing  older  people  
into  age  groups;  
3. The  media  ensemble:  looking  at  the  various  (and  varying)  ways  people  ‘do  
media’  and  give  meaning  to  their  ensemblematic  media  use  with  appreciation  
of  economic,  social  and  cultural  resources  The  transformation  of  ageing  and  
cultural  approaches  to  social  diversity  and  inequality  

Our  first  intervention  focuses  on  the  operationalization  of  social  stratification  and  
inequality  broadly  conceived  in  studies  of  later  life.  Beyond  traditional  
conceptualizations  of  inequality  and  stratification  largely  determined  by  property  and  
socioeconomic  status,  we  follow  Formosa  and  Higgs’  (2013)  call  to  advocate  cultural  
approaches,  specifically  focusing  on  how  older  people  make  sense  of  self,  other  and  
their  world  beyond  decline  or  dependency.  Rather  than  seeing  old  age  (like  class)  as  
something  that  happens  to  people,  later  life  today  can  be  considered  varied  and  
dynamic.  Some  experience  affluent  later  lives,  while  others  face  an  additional  phase  
of  precariousness;  some  stay  healthy  long  into  old  age,  while  others  go  though  many  
years  of  decline  and  frailty.    
Part  of  surviving  in  contemporary  capitalism  and  society  depends  on  the  successful  
navigation  of  the  multiple  media  environment  (Deuze,  2012:  165).  Mass  media  in  
general  and  personal  media  in  particular  play  a  profound  role  in  contemporary  
processes  of  sense-­‐making,  performing  and  shaping  identities,  forming  and  
maintaining  relationships,  as  well  as  simply  being  in  (and  navigating  through)  the  
world.  As  formulated  by  Lunt  and  Livingstone  (2011),  critical  media  literacy  has  
become  the  prerequisite  for  people  to  participate  effectively  in  society;  at  the  same  
time,  this  can  only  be  realized  ‘in  and  through  social  practices’  (p.  136).  It  is  on  this  
level  of  practice  where  personal,  mobile  and  social  media  in  particular  provide  the  
interfaces  of  people’s  relationships  with  each  other  as  well  as  with  service  providers,  
businesses  and  the  state.  By  utilizing  media  as  a  cultural  resource,  individuals  in  the  
mediatized  context  become  ‘the  result  as  well  as  the  producer  of  its  networks,  
situation,  location  and  form’  (Beck  et  al.,  2003:  25;  italics  in  original).  Grounded  in  this  
dialectic,  people  can  be  seen  as  caught  by  a  double  bind  in  media:  from  the  
increasingly  prominent  role  of  information  and  communication  technologies  (ICT)  
intensified  by  the  on-­‐going  dismantling  of  the  welfare  state  and  the  individualization  
of  society  (Bauman,  2000)  to  the  media’s  central  role  in  constituting  social  
relationships  and  shared  imagined  worlds  across  time  and  space  (Appadurai,  1996).  
If  inequality  in  the  much-­‐vaunted  networked  information  society  transforms  into  
an  individualized,  precarious  enterprise,  impacting  in  specific  ways  perceptions  and  
practices  of  old  age,  it  is  paramount  to  explore  what  is  actually  going  on  in  people’s  
lives  with  media,  particularly  when  it  comes  to  those  in  later  life.  As  argued  by  Roger  
Silverstone  and  Leslie  Haddon  (1996),  we  need  to  attend  not  just  to  the  context  of  
media  use  but  to  how  the  specificity  of  economic,  political  and  social  experience  plays  
out  in  the  experience  of  media  and  communication  technologies  (p.  46).  Our  first  
intervention  is  to  point  towards  the  necessity  of  grounded  explorative  daily  life  
studies  as  a  starting  point  for  the  development  of  more  comprehensive  
understandings  of  the  new  media  environment,  fine-­‐grained  theorizing  of  the  role  of  
media  in  social  and  cultural  hierarchies  and  developing  a  critical  appreciation  of  how  
media  shape  stratification  of  the  ageing  experience.  What  we  see  as  a  promising  way  
of  studying  the  role  of  media  in  older  people’s  lives  with  a  cultural  approach  to  social  
diversity  and  inequality  (Savage,  2000)  is  to  take  inspiration  from  the  field  of  cultural  
gerontology  (Twigg  and  Martin,  2015)  and  to  look  to  subjectivity  and  identity,  the  
body  and  everyday  life  by  means  of  ethnographic  studies  that  are  sensitized  towards  
social  diversity  (Bottero,  2004).  Coupled  with  inspiration  from  practice  theory  
(Bourdieu,  1984;  Reckwitz,  2002;  Schatzki,  1999)  attentive  to  both  habitually  
embodied  routine  and  discourse  as  systems  of  meaning  that  people  draw  on  when  
they  speak  about  their  life  worlds,  social  positions  and  place  in  society  (Lindemann,  
2007),  this  would  move  analyses  towards  grounded  theorizing  of  the  influence  of  
media  in  social  diversity.  Exactly  because  of  the  dearth  of  specificity  in  research  on  the  
diverse  and  stratified  lived  and  mediatized  experience  of  later  life,  anthropological  
approaches  are  significant  at  this  particular  point  in  time,  opening  the  way  to  larger,  
wide-­‐ranging  studies  of  (new)  media  and  ageing.  

A  life  course  approach  to  media  and  social  diversity  

Inequality  does  not  just  happen  to  people  when  they  get  old  as  an  effect  of  being  old  
–  social  diversity  and  disparities  form  during  life  and  into  old  age  and  are  embedded  in  
everyday  practices.  Given  the  pervasive  role  of  ICT  in  everyday  life,  we  may  expect  
issues  of  social  diversity  and  inequality  play  out  in  media  life.  A  second  intervention  
we  propose  is  a  research  design  informed  by  a  life  course  approach  to  ageing  and  
mediatization  –  specifically  when  it  comes  to  a  heightened  sensitivity  towards  the  
interaction  of  historical  and  individual  time,  and  of  intra-­‐cohort  diversity.  The  life  
course  reflects  how  social  and  historical  factors  intersect  with  the  personal  biography  
and  subjective  experience  (Elder,  1985;  Hareven,  1996).  It  can  be  a  tool  for  developing  
a  chronicled  consideration  of  people  in  later  life  as  well  as  appreciating  the  interplay  
of  media  influences  and  historical  changes  over  the  course  of  a  lifetime.  
Empirical  media  research  that  addresses  the  intersection  between  general  social  
diversity  and  media  use  is  limited  (Hargittai,  2008;  Robinson,  2009).  Notably,  the  
concern  with  social  inequality  has  been  translated  into  research  on  digital  divides  
between  information  rich  and  poor  (Hepp  and  Hasebrink,  2013:  16).  The  concern  for  
age-­‐based  digital  divides  in  how  people  use  media  –  and  how  to  include  older  people  
in    
particular  –  have  been  consistent  and  underpin  a  considerable  amount  of  the  total  
research  focusing  on  media  in  later  life.  The  maturing  of  the  digital  media  
environment  has  promoted  a  reframing  of  the  concern  from  thinking  in  divides  of  
‘either-­‐or’  access  and  use  to  a  focus  on  ‘gradients  of  digital  inclusion’  –  as,  for  
example,  the  ability  to  make  effective  use  of  opportunities  related  to  being  online  
(Livingstone  and  Helsper,  2007).  Another  refinement  is  a  diversification  of  variables  
for  measurement  of  inclusion,  more  recently  encompassing  abilities  to  create  and  
share  content  (Brants  and  Frissen,  2005;  Haddon  and  Livingstone,  2009;  Helsper  et  al.,  
2014).  However,  despite  attempts  to  develop  nuanced  models  for  digital  divides  (Van  
Dijk  and  Hacker,  2003),  it  remains  unclear  what  concepts  like  inclusion  or  literacy  
mean  to  people  beyond  preferred  ICT  practices;  what  the  outcome  of  digital  media  
use  is  or  could  be  for  the  general  public;  or  what  the  connection  between  general  and  
digital  inequality  is  (Hargittai,  2008;  Helsper  et  al.,  2014;  Livingstone  and  Helsper,  
2007).  Leopoldina  Fortunati  (2008)  notes  how  the  debate  on  digital  inclusion  lacks  
‘robust  sociological  and  political  vision  as  well  as  anthropological  awareness’  (p.  1).  
Such  general  observations  are  particularly  poignant  when  it  comes  to  studies  on  
digital  inclusion  and  exclusion  regarding  ageing  populations.  
With  attention  to  the  conceptual  pitfalls  of  the  research  on  the  interrelationship  
between  inequality  and  digital  media,  it  has  been  suggested  to  turn  to  ethnographic  
studies  of  everydayness  as  a  basis  for  the  further  development  of  what  inclusion  and  
benefits  may  mean  to  different  people  in  different  contexts  (Helsper  et  al.,  2014).  This  
is  a  highly  relevant  suggestion  if  the  concern  is  the  inclusion  of  older  people.  The  
imposing  of  a  categorical  homogeneity  of  (old)  age  is  at  odds  with  the  general  insight  
of  ageing  studies:  that  old  age  in  particular  is  heterogeneous  due  to  the  accumulation  
of  the  effects  of  different  experiences  and  conditions  during  the  individual’s  life  
(Dannefer,  1988;  Hagberg,  2012:  191;  Riley,  2013:  66).  Matilda  Riley  (1988)  early  on  
highlighted  the  fallacy  of  ‘cohort  centrism’  arguing  that  experiences  of  ageing  and  
being  old  change  with  the  changing  of  society.  People  take  different  paths  in  the  
historically  changing  society,  and  the  ability  to  adapt  to  –  or  rather  with  –  media  
technological  transformations  varies  with  the  economic,  cultural  and  social  resources  
particular  to  gender,  family  structure,  ethnicity  and  social  class.  Society  is  stratified  by  
both  inter-­‐  and  intra-­‐cohort  disparities.  
As  consistently  pointed  out  in  studies  on  media  concerned  with  older  people,  the  
life  course  perspective  dismantles  the  all-­‐to-­‐easy  notion  of  media  ‘generations’  and  
other  age-­‐based  patterns  of  use,  divides,  sensitizing  analyses  to  the  role  of  media  in  
both  inter-­‐  and  intra-­‐cohort  social  diversity  (Hagberg,  2012;  Quinn,  2014;  see  
Richardson  et  al.,  2011;  Westlund  and  Weibull,  2011).  A  life  course  perspective  
integrates  three  aspects  of  time,  providing  a  complex  rendering  of  age  and  ageing:  

• Individual  time  of  biologically  and  culturally  moulded  life  phases  –  such  as  
childhood,  adulthood  and  old  age;  
• Cohort  time  as  the  shared  or  stratified  experience  of  people  of  the  same  
chronological  age;  
• Historical  time  of  political,  economic  and  technological  conditions  and  changes  
as  the  accumulation  and  transformation  of  social  actions  into  social  formations.  

In  addition,  Gubrium  and  Holstein  (2000)  add  a  social  constructivist  approach  to  
the  life  course  as  a  ‘social  form’  that  people  co-­‐produce  and  use  in  their  practices  and  
more  or  less  reflexive  sense-­‐making  of  the  everyday  (p.  1).  The  perspective  is  used  for  
micro-­‐  and  macro-­‐level  studies  as  well  as  for  objective  and  subjective  perspectives.  
Social  gerontologist  Chris  Phillipson  (2013)  points  towards  the  potential  of  the  life  
course  perspective  to  analyse  and  theorize  larger  social  patterns  within  individual  
lives.  With  concern  to  social  diversity  and  inequality  as  aspects  of  the  transformation  
of  ageing,  Higgs  and  Gilleard  (2006)  argue  that  the  life  course  perspective  challenges  
assumptions  of  a  relatively  stable  social  structure  by  showing  how  ‘occupational  
mobility  (or  the  lack  of  it)  no  longer  directly  translates  into  variation  in  the  material  
outcomes  of  either  individuals  or  households’  (p.  12).  Yet,  as  an  example  of  a  general  
shift  from  a  focus  on  social  structures  to  individual  agency,  the  perspective  has  mostly  
been  used  for  biographical  and  life-­‐historical  studies,  less  so  for  media  (Phillipson,  
2013:  35–36).  
 A  biographical  perspective  of  the  life  course  sensitized  towards  differences  in  
terms  of  intra-­‐cohort  life  paths  and  experiences  is  an  effective  way  of  bypassing  
categorical  homogeneity  and  cohort  centrism.  A  simultaneous  historicizing  of  lived  
experience  in  media  life  contributes  to  qualifying  the  understanding  of  who  we  are  
studying  when  looking  into  the  role  of  media  in  later  life.  The  life  course  perspective  
can  be  useful  in  focusing  how  media  figure  in  establishing,  maintaining  and  
dismantling  co-­‐creative  processes  and  interconnections.  With  its  sensitizing  of  the  
interaction  of  historical  and  individual  time  as  well  as  cohort  diversity,  the  grid  offers  a  
crucial  step  of  an  operationalization  of  bottom-­‐up  exploring  of  how  structures  of  
social  inequalities  and  ageing  have  been  and  are  experienced  and  co-­‐produced  in  
‘everydayness’  (Lefebvre,  1987).  

Ensemblematic  approaches  to  media  in  daily  life  

The  third  and  final  intervention  we  would  like  to  make  calls  to  focus  empirical  work  on  
media  repertoires:  looking  at  the  various  ways  people  ‘do’  their  media,  rather  than  
documenting  distinct  media  usage  in  generic  categories  such  as  time  spent,  
equipment  used,  and  skills  deployed.  Our  point  is  that  people  use  media  as  ensembles  
and  that  media,  beyond  their  capacities  for  communication,  should  be  understood  
and  studied  in  both  their  material  as  well  as  emotional  contexts:  in  terms  of  what  they  
are  and  what  they  mean.  Research  should  be  done  with  reference  to  how  different  
media  and  practices  during  the  life  course  combine  to  form  distinct  repertoires  of  use.  
When  empirically  addressing  the  role  media  play  in  everyday  later  life,  it  is  quite  
apparent  that  considering  media  as  discrete  technologies,  types  or  genres  (as  has  
been  the  general  approach  in  audience,  reception  and  user  studies)  is  problematic.  
With  the  proliferation  of  media  –  especially  newer  media  for  interpersonal  
communication  –  a  core  component  of  the  current  mediatization  wave  is  the  
convergence  and  divergence  of  ubiquitous  and  pervasive  media  into  an  integrated  
environment.  This  point  is  critical,  as  a  wide  variety  of  media  have  been  integrated  
differently  into  different  experiences  that  in  later  life  manifest  in  an  ‘entirety  of  
media’  (Hasebrink  and  Domeyer,  2012:  758).  Regarding  the  specific  question  of  social  
inequality  as  operationalized  in  digital  divide  and  inclusion  studies,  people  have  
multiple  ways  of  integrating  media  into  their  everyday  lives.  As  argued  by  Hepp  and  
Hasebrink  (2013),  when  the  interest  is  the  role  of  media  in  producing  or  maintaining  
inequality,  it  is  problematic  to  focus  on  use  and  outcomes  of  single  media  because  
equalities  and  inequalities  are  multi-­‐level  and  enforce  or  compensate  each  other  (p.  
16).  Their  work  echoes  earlier  calls  –  for  example,  by  Herman  Bausinger  as  early  as  
1984,  more  recently  by  Couldry  (2011)  –  to  consider  media  as  an  ensemble,  manifold  
or  repertoire,  rather  than  a  series  of  distinct  devices,  platforms  and  uses.  Linking  an  
ensemblematic  approach  to  media  with  the  life  course  perspective  means  that  
different  people  at  different  locations  (and  social  positions)  in  the  world  find  different  
ways  of  being  in  the  (new)  media  environment.  Media  constitute  and  represent,  
connect  as  well  as  isolate  human  beings.  This  is  why  it  becomes  crucial  to  engage  
directly  with  people’s  experience  of  reality  as  lived  and  experienced  in  what  Lawrence  
Grossberg  (1988)  called  ‘the  everyday  world  of  media  life’  (p.  389).  
To  look  at  the  full  range  of  media  repertoires  of  people  situates  analysis  empirically  
on  the  level  of  individuals,  focusing  on  their  meaningful  compositions  of  multiple  
media  (Hasebrink  and  Domeyer,  2012:  760;  Hasebrink  and  Popp,  2006).  People’s  
media  ecologies  or  repertoires  furthermore  extend  beyond  discourse  and  include  the  
material  conditions  of  their  mediatized  environment.  As  formulated  by  Thorsten  
Quandt  and  Thilo  von  Pape  (2010),  the  successive  domestication  and  life  of  media  in  
the  home  and  household  is  integrated  with  the  life  course  of  its  inhabitants.  The  
home,  like  any  other  space  wherein  people  work,  play  and  live,  becomes  an  
integrated  media  environment  –  what  Quandt  and  Van  Pape  call  a  ‘mediatope’  
(deploying  a  biological  metaphor).  The  range  of  activities  and  arrangements  people  
have  with  media  can  be  empirically  approached  as  a  repertoire.  According  to  the  
repertoire  approach,  the  compositions  of  media  link  closely  to  the  ways  someone  
expresses  his  or  her  individuality  within  the  social  and  technological  contexts  he  or  
she  inhabits.  As  such,  media  repertoires  are  closely  intertwined  with  social  position,  
lifestyles  and  life  projects  (Hasebrink  and  Domeyer,  2012:  12–14;  Hepp  and  Hasebrink,  
2013:  13),  which  is  why  they  can  be  useful  in  exploring  differences,  inequalities  and  
stratification.  It  is  this  integration  of  media  –  in  their  double  articulation  (Silverstone,  
1994)  as  ensembles  of  material  objects  and  as  symbolic  content,  integrated  with  
embodied  practice  and  sense-­‐making  over  time  –  that  we  consider  as  a  most  fruitful  
line  of  double  articulated  inquiry  (Livingstone,  2007)  when  exploring  the  role  of  media  
in  later  life  and  old  age.    

Conclusion  
As  the  accumulation  of  experiences  throughout  life  makes  old  age  socially  and  
culturally  highly  diverse,  it  is  urgent  to  be  nuanced  and  to  focus  on  difference  and  
differentiation  when  studying  older  people.  With  the  individualization  of  the  life  
course,  diversity  and  corresponding  inequalities  further  increase.  The  parallel  process  
of  mediatization  should  inspire  us  to  both  historicize  and  make  visible  how  people  and  
media  shape  social  and  cultural  differences.  
In  this  review,  we  have  argued  that  studies  of  new  media  and  society  can  
contribute  to  shedding  light  on  inequalities  in  later  life  by  deploying  perspectives  and  
methodologies  that  are  sensitized  towards  social  and  cultural  differences  among  older  
people.  First,  we  argued  that  the  categorical  singularities  created  of  people  in  later  life  
and  of  media  use  are  at  odds  with  what  we  know  about  biological,  social  and  cultural  
ageing,  as  it  is  out  of  sync  with  how  people  and  their  media  should  be  seen  as  co-­‐
creating  everydayness,  including  its  social  differences  and  inequalities.  Next,  we  
suggested  to  integrate  insights  from  ageing  studies  with  media  theory  and  
methodology  in  order  to  explore  the  different  media  lives  that  may  –  or  may  not  –  
constitute  inequalities  in  later  life.  As  a  way  to  empirically  integrate  cultural  
approaches  to  inequality,  the  life  course  perspective  on  ageing  and  media  theory,  we  
proposed  the  approach  to  media  as  an  ensemble,  recognizing  how  people  integrate  
multiple  media  into  ‘mediatopes’  where  their  lives  play  out  in  media.  
It  is  striking  how  groups  and  segments  of  people  generally  still  get  partitioned  
according  to  traditional  or  under  defined  categories  of  age,  class,  and  media  uses.  We  
have  aimed  to  explore  the  various  ways  in  which  such  approaches  lack  a  certain  depth  
of  understanding  by  discussing  emerging  insights  from  media  and  communication  
studies,  ageing  studies  and  social  stratification  studies.  Although  such  arguments  can  
be  made  of  any  age  cohort  and  different  interest  groups  (such  as  refugees  and  
disabled  people),  the  study  of  older  people  is  still  in  its  infancy.  Our  ageing  and  
mediatizing  societies  require  rich,  nuanced  investigation  specifically  with  reference  to  
the  ways  those  in  later  life  experience  inequality  and  manifest  social  diversity,  
especially  since  media  and  communication  technologies  have  become  so  central  in  
the  political,  economical  and  cultural  coping  strategies  of  ageing  societies  struggling  
with  the  challenges  of  a  dependent  old  age.  

Notes  
1. Ageing  of  the  population  refers  to  both  the  increase  in  the  average  (median)  age  of  
the  population  and  the  increase  in  the  number  and  proportion  of  older  people  in  
the  population.  
2. We  have  to  qualify  that  there  seem  to  be  no  published  studies  at  all  that  consider  
people  in  later  life  as  makers  of  media  –  although  their  phone  calls,  texts  and  
messages,  online  comments,  social  media  profiles,  game  avatars  (Zafar,  2011)  as  
well  as  their  idiosyncratic  uses  and  arrangements  of  media  are  constitutive  of  their  
media  lives.  As  John  Hartley  (2012)  argues,  people  publishing  their  lives  online  can  
be  considered  to  be  a  marker  of  a  new  cultural  literacy  (p.  111).  This  fits  calls  by  
media  scholars  for  developing  a  distinct  makers’  perspective  for  the  study  of  
people  and  media  in  everyday  life  (Gauntlett,  2015;  Jenkins,  2006).  

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Author  biographies  
Cecilie  Givskov  is  Assistant  Professor  in  the  Department  of  Media,  Cognition  and  
Communication,  University  of  Copenhagen.  From  2013-­‐2016  she  has  been  part  of  a  
collective  research  project  on  ageing  in  media  and  older  people’s  media  use.  

Mark  Deuze  is  Professor  of  Mediastudies  in  the  Department  of  Mediastudies,  
University  of  Amsterdam,  The  Netherlands.  Publications  of  his  work  include  “Media  
Work”  (Polity  Press,  2007)  and  “Media  Life”  (Polity  Press,  2012).  

 
 

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