Hello, and thank you for tuning in.
I'm Arlind Reuter from Openlab Newcastle University,
and together with my co-authors, Tom Scharf and Ian Smeddinck,
who are also from Newcastle University,
we looked at content creation in later life and the importance
of reconsidering older adults' digital participation
and inclusion.
And our research is based in the discourse
of digital participation, digital inclusion, and content
creation, all within a civic context.
So we're looking at active citizen participation.
And civic participation has increasingly
shifted to digital spaces, and therefore relies on
older activists to have sufficient digital skills.
So with this paper, we explore the relationship
between the concepts of digital inclusion
and digital participation in later life.
And digital inclusion, so for example,
teaching digital skills, has been implemented
in the UK government's strategies
for [?] to prevent later life exclusion,
and it's about having access, skills, and motivation
to confidently go online.
We know a bit less about the concept
of digital participation.
But it really is about ways in which older people actively
participate and contribute to the digital sphere.
And with our research, we challenge the idea
that digital inclusion is always a precondition
for digital participation, but instead, we
suggest that older adults can enhance their digital skills,
and therefore their digital inclusion,
through digital participatory activities.
For example, content creation.
And our research was conducted using
a qualitative and collaborative approach working
with older content creators.
And we report an observations from engagement activities,
semi-structured interviews with the older content creators,
and a workshop in which we explored
one older people's organization, and its media landscape.
In using thematic analysis, we outlined three themes.
The first one is older adults' motivations to create content,
and here, we're touching on civic but also personal
motivations.
The second theme is about ways in which creating content
can be a gateway for older people to learn
creative digital skills.
So for example, intentionally learning how to produce content
or actually as a byproduct to a content creation activity.
So for example, downloading something because it's
needed to create content.
And the third thing we looked at,
is challenges that are associated with content
creation in later life.
So here, for example, we're emphasizing the need
for collaborative work.
And additionally, we conducted a workshop
with one organization of older adults,
and we looked at how they use media
as part of their civic activism, and as a result,
we mapped out the organization's communications workflow,
which you can see here.
And we share in the paper how they link into digital and non
digital activism, and how they use this wealth of media
to advocate for older people's rights.
And overall, we discuss the potential of digital content
creation activities.
For example, audio, production, and communications
online, and the role in enhancing digital skills
in later life.
We also highlight the importance of recognizing older people
as active and civic contributors in the digital sphere,
and our insights have implications
for the delivery of digital inclusion strategies,
and it leads us to propose a shift from mainly looking
at digital inclusion, towards considering
digital participation in later life
as a means of supporting older adults to become
more active in civic society.
And I'm aware that this is just a really short insight
to the paper, so we welcome question,
and please just get in touch with us
by email, or on Twitter, as you can see below,
if you would like to talk about this further.
Thank you.