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PN 309
The Role of Digital Media in the Transition to Parenthood
M.S. Damkjær
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1
University of Aarhus, School of Communication and Culture - Media Studies, Aarhus N, Denmark
Recent studies document how digital media permeate family life and contribute to change everyday practices and patterns of social interaction (Clark 2013;
Livingstone & Das 2010). The focus, however, has primarily been on children, youth or family life structures. We know little about the significance of digital
media’s intertwinement with one of the most profound changes in an individual’s life course: the transition to parenthood (Bartholomew 2012). Today’s
new parents have access to information and communication resources with a volume, speed, and scope that is unprecedented in history and provide vast
new opportunities for engaging in and displaying family life: websites and online communities for parents, pregnancy apps, and social network sites. More‑
over, mobile technologies have extended the communicative possibilities and made the plentitude of media types constantly available. This paper address‑
es the role of digital media in the transition to parenthood: In what ways and with what consequences are digital media entangled in this pivotal life phase?
And what characterizes this perhaps increasingly mediatized life transition? The paper analyzes and discusses these questions on the basis of findings from
a comparative multiple-case study among Danish first time parents (2013–2015). The study is focused on how new parents use digital media in their new
social role. Data comprise 56 questionnaires, and 24 qualitative in-depth interviews (16 individual, 8 couple) with eight new co-living parent couples and
include observations of the informants’ media environment (during home visits), and their Facebook feeds from nine month before till four months after
the birth of their child. The paper employs the concept of mediatization as theoretical background while the core empirical analysis is informed by family
sociology and Internet studies. Mediatization addresses the interrelation between media-communicative change and sociocultural change and is concep‑
tualized as the process where media, enhanced by their increasing entanglement in almost all spheres of culture, become indispensable (Jansson 2015)
and condition core elements of a social or cultural activity (Hjarvard 2013; Hepp 2013). Based on the empirical analysis, the paper argues that digital media
contribute to frame and shape cultural practices and social interaction in the transition to parenthood. Findings show that key practices in the transition to
parenthood are closely entwined with digital media practices e.g. announcing pregnancy and birth, sharing news from the new family life, building paren‑
tal family ties, seeking advice and guidance - in short managing the new social role as parents. Consequently, digital media are involved in producing and
shaping expectations, social roles and rituals.The paper discusses how the media entanglement relates to the increased individualization of the family insti‑
tution (Beck-Gernsheim 2002) and the need for not just doing but displaying family life (Finch, 2007). On this basis the paper concludes that digital media
have become an indispensable part of this pivotal rite of passage. This mediatized condition entails new possibilities, but also fosters a new communicative
pressure on the social integration, as new parents needs to deal with the curating of family life online, and the specific consequences of opting in or out.
PN 310
“It’s Also Good for My Brain”: Playing Digital Games After 65
S.M. Iversen
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University of Southern Denmark, Department for the Study of Culture, Odense M, Denmark
Digital games are increasingly a mainstreammedium used by wide range of people. Not only do those who have grown up with digital games often contin‑
ue to play into adulthood, first time players are also not necessarily all children.While research some years back counted those over 35 or 40 as“older players”
(Pearce, 2008; Quandt, Grueninger, &Wimmer, 2009), statistics from Scandinavia show that (varying amongst the countries) between 10–20% of the pop‑
ulation over the age of 65 play digital games daily or nearly daily (Bak et al., 2012, p. 131; Carlsson, 2014, p. 124;Vaage, 2015, p. 72). Research suggests that
the ways digital games fit into players’lives often change as they move from one life phase to another (Juul, 2009). Here I will discuss the different meanings
digital games may have in the post retirement lives of 14 Danes aged 65 and above. The basis for analysis is 14 qualitative interviews with four men and ten
women from the age of 65–92. Three of the interviews have been carried out via email, while the rest of the informants have been visited in their homes.
Similar to the reading of women’s magazines, analysed by Joke Hermes in 1995, nearly all informants describe the playing of digital games as something
insignificant in their incredibly activity-filled lives. Yet, as the conversations unfold it is clear that the playing of digital games is deeply embedded in their
everyday routines.The different ways that the informants make sense of their own use of digital games will be discussed here in relation to notions of active
ageing and productivity (Fagerström & Aarsten, 2013; Katz, 2000; Pike, 2011), as well as the ageing body (Tulle-Winton, 2000).
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