Ricerc@Sapienza

In this paper, we explore ageist depictions of both young and older people as they emerge
from discourses addressing ‘other people’s’ digital media usage practices. We carried out
eight focus groups (four with teenagers, four with people aged 65 or older) in two southern
European cities (Rome and Barcelona). By negotiating the affordances and constraints
of (digital) tools and platforms, people develop their own usage norms and strategies,
which might – or might not – be intersubjectively shared. Discourses surrounding usage
practices and norms tend to refer to what people understand as an appropriate way of
using digital platforms: these discourses proved to be powerful triggers for expressing ageist
stereotypes; ‘the others’ were depicted, by both teenage and older participants, as
adopting inappropriate usage practices (with regard to content, form, skills and adherence
to social norms). These reflections proved to have broader implications on how other age
cohorts are perceived: participants tended to take discourses on digital media usage as an
opportunity for making generalised judgements about ‘the others’, which address their
manners, as well as their attitude towards communication and social life. Inter-group discrimination
processes and ageist stereotypes play a major role in shaping the strong moralistic
and patronising judgements expressed by older and younger participants towards
‘the other’ age cohort