Social media and senior citizen advocacy: an inclusive tool to resist ageism?

Abstract

With population aging, interest groups demand that governments act to prevent a perceived financial crisis. Senior citizens remain frustrated in their efforts to influence the response of policy-makers. In an effort to strengthen their voice, one group of senior citizens, engaged in a participatory action research project, questioned how online social media could be used in their advocacy efforts. This query led to an examination of the literature with the primary objective of determining what is known about the use of social media by senior citizens for the purposes of social advocacy. The outcomes of the review revealed that very few studies specifically examined this question. Senior citizen online roles were depicted as consumers of health information or socializers with family and friends. Ageist assumptions informed the design of computer hardware, online formats and norms for social engagement. Senior citizens have concerns about the trustworthiness of social networking sites and while social media can exclude senior citizens from public debate, the authors conclude that the pressing issue is to focus on age-friendly design and supports. With these in place, social media can provide a venue for senior citizens to challenge ageism and influence public policy discourses.Keywords: social media; ageism; senior citizenship; advocacy; political activism IntroductionThe questions examined in this paper arose from discussions with a group of senior citizen activists involved in the participatory action research project (PAR), Exercising Senior Citizenship in an Ageist Society, under the facilitation of the first author and fourth author. This group of senior citizens (the term "senior citizen" used advisedly to convey seniors as participants in valued social roles who hold the rights and responsibilities of citizens) is actively involved in advocacy work focused on the provision of adequate supportive home services within the province of Ontario, Canada. In their efforts to be heard, the group is exploring the use of social media as a tool and venue to give voice to their message. Early on, one of the senior members and long-time activist (age 93) expressed frustration with the increasing use of online technologies for communication and advocacy work, which she experiences as a form of social exclusion. She lamented that while younger people grew up with this technology, many older adults are left "in a void" © 2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (http:// creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. *Corresponding author. Email: b.trentham@utoronto.ca Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2015 Vol. 3, No. 3, 558-571, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2015 and at a disadvantage when it comes t...

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