CNSC research member Sarah Wagner has just published the open acces article “Place-Making through Media: How Media Environments Make a Difference for Long-Term Care Residents’ Agency” on Societies, an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal of sociology, published bimonthly online.
Sarah Wagner is an adjunct postdoctoral researcher in the CNSC group. Since 2012 her research has explored the intersections of (digital) communication practices and ICT service systems. Combining political economy research with community-based collaboration, she has been examining the factors that shape individuals’ civic positioning in digitalization.
Paper abstract
This paper explores the unique relationships care home residents have with communication media. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic case study at a long-term care site in British Columbia, Canada, I describe how care home residents’ everyday media practices are intertwined with their negotiations of longstanding attachments and new living spaces. The research draws connections between the spatiotemporal contexts of media use and residents’ experiences of social agency. Long-term care residents in this research were challenged to engage with the wider community, maintain friendships, or stay current with events and politics because their preferred ways of using communication media were not possible in long-term care. The communication inequalities experienced by care home residents were not simply about their lack of access to media or content but about their inability to find continuity with their established media habits in terms of time and place. While most research about communication media in care homes has been intervention oriented, this research suggests that long-term care service and funding policies require greater attention to create flexible, diverse, and supportive media environments
Citation
Wagner S. Place-Making through Media: How Media Environments Make a Difference for Long-Term Care Residents’ Agency. Societies. 2022; 12(1):27. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12010027
Useful links
- Open acces article: Place-Making through Media: How Media Environments Make a Difference for Long-Term Care Residents’ Agency, by Sarah Wagner on Societies (Full version)