The elderly, IT and the public discourse. Representations of exclusion and inclusion

Abstract

The paper focuses on the political and institutional trends that foster digital literacy among seniors, and the forms it takes in both the public discourses and the concrete practices of teaching seniors how to use information technologies (IT). IT often recur as an essential element in the discourses that stress the importance of an active, healthy and independent aging, as well as the need for mechanisms that reduce potential isolation and exclusion of seniors. Nonetheless, the inconsistency of these different discourses makes it hard to represent the older people using IT in a clear, convincing and believable way.