ECREA16-Abstract

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Saturday, November 12

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DCC17

Everyday Digital Media Use in a Life Course Perspective

S.M. Iversen

University of Southern Denmark, Department for the Study of Culture, Odense M, Denmark

Media technologies and all they enable are crucial elements of everyday life. Here we will approach digital culture and communication on the basis of a life

course perspective. The focus will be on how experiences, understandings and expectations of different life phases in various ways co-shape daily digital

media usage, and thus, digital cultures. In some cases because these practices occur at very particular stages of human life that call for reflections about

existing strategies or the development of new ones. In other cases because being at a specific life stage frames media usage in certain ways. Importantly,

we do not invoke the notion of“life course”as a formalised sociological or psychological typology that indicates an idealised and clearly defined trajectory.

Rather, the conception provides a basis for directing attention to the intersections between daily media practices and the “cultural beliefs, structural ar‑

rangements, policies and practices”(Mortimer & Moen, 2016, p. 211) that inform different stages of life. Note also, that life phases here are not necessarily

or only understood in terms of chronological age. Presenting five different Danish studies, the proposed panel will discuss how a variety of digital media

are used during particular stages of life as well as how the media users understand and negotiate this usage. Namely, during childhood, certain transitory

stages of adult life, and close to or after retirement. In one sense, age and life phase is a reoccurring theme within all Media Research. However, we will

argue that the focus is often implicit or a question of target groups and study demographics – apart from in relation to children and adolescents. Yet, even

though children and adolescents receive special attention, the expectations and framings governing much research within that area may lead to blind spots

and questions that remain unasked. Moreover, as the implied media user of the majority of Media Research, the practices of adults are rarely understood

in a way that centres on the expectations and understandings related to particular life phases. The tree, so to speak, disappears in the wood. Likewise, at

the other end of the life course, older adults are still rather under-prioritised in research.We hope to demonstrate with our panel that foregrounding matters

of life course and age is, indeed, a fruitful avenue to take in seeking to understand digital media practices and cultures. References Mortimer, J., & Moen,

P. (2016). The changing social construction of age and the life course: Precarious identity and enactment of “early”and “encore”stages of adulthood. In M.

Shanahan, J. Mortimer, & M. Johnson (Eds.) Handbook of the life course, vol. II. Cham: Springer.

PN 308

Uses of Media in Everyday Practices of Grief Among Bereaved Parents

D.R. Christensen

, K. Sandvik

University of Aarhus, Department for Aesthetics and Communications, Aarhus C, Denmark

University of Copenhagen, Department for Media- Cognition and Communication, Copenhagen S, Denmark

Ubiquitous media is not just a matter of (digital) media being everywhere and embedded in various objects (clothing, household hardware, buildings…).

Using the practices of bereavement and commemoration as displayed by parents on children’s graves and online memorial sites as a case, this paper claims

that ubiquitous media as a concept also relates to processes of mediatization (Cf. Hjarvard 2008, Lundbye 2009, Hepp 2013); to the ‘thingification of media’

(Lash & Lury 2007) and to everyday practices through which we (re)appropriate and change existing media ‘to suit our needs’(Cf. Jensen 2010). Based on

observation studies and qualitative content analyses of both children’s graves and online memory profiles (Christensen & Sandvik 2013, 2014a), this paper

demonstrates how bereaved parents perform practices on children’s graves and through other media practices such as online memorial sites continues

the bonds (Cf. Walter 1999) to the dead child so that the bereaved can re-integrate the dead into their everyday life. This perspective implies that grieving

is not allocated to a specific period of time (a time of mourning) but that grieving and the uses of social technologies like media related to it are embedded

in everyday life practices. Here, small-scale (compared to institutionalized periods of mourning) ritualizations and repetitions are central as are the con‑

vergence of deathstyle and lifestyle since the ritual responses to death are not outside ordinary life. This paper presents insights into the uses of media in

everyday practices of grief and commemoration primarily related to stillborns and the death of newly born and young people. The complexity of everyday

practices of grief vouches for developing a corresponding complex media concept in which media characteristics and affordances (the functionalities that

are specifically fit for a certain use) may be understood as a matter of dimensions, as complex systems of communication whether we see this in the use

of objects on children’s graves embedded with media affordances (Christensen & Sandvik 2014a) or social media used as communicational tools for creating

online memorial profiles (Christensen & Sandvik 2013). Inspired by multidimensional concepts of media and communication (e.g. Meyrowitz 1973 and

Jensen 2010), concepts are developed that can describe the way in which media and media uses are entwined in the everyday practices but not solely in

a one-way cause-and-effect way implying that media produce new practices. The paper argues that at the same time we can observe how people turn

objects into media or create new ways of using existing media employing them as new tools for communicating with or about the dead (see Jensen 2010,

Christensen & Sandvik 2014a; 2014b). What is suggested in the concluding part of this paper is a method and an analytical apparatus for studying how

existing or invented media enable, facilitate and shape practices related to death and loss and at the same time how existing media are appropriated and

modified to fit the need of these practices.