Nursing home residents' media use from a life course perspective

In times of global ageing, it is striking that little is known about the media habits of older adults, an increasingly growing group with a lot of leisure time. This article provides insight into the day-to-day media use of 40 nursing home residents throughout their life course. The residents under study live in two nursing homes in Flanders (Belgium), one located in a rural and the other in an urban context. In semi-structured interviews, the residents were asked about their use of and interest in a range of media. The life course perspective provides an opportunity to track the evolution of media use from the residents childhood to older adulthood. Here, processes of both change and continuity were found for media use throughout the life course. The residents consistently prefer local content and news and are loyal to channels or titles throughout their lives. In contrast, some media use and interests of the nursing home residents change over time, as contextual (society, media landscape) and personal circumstances (e.g. time, money, health) change. Finally, interesting differences were found between rural and urban residents in terms of media use and interests, mostly based on class distinctions.

Jaar van publicatie:2013

Trefwoorden:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:ja

Toegankelijkheid:Closed