Usages différenciés des TIC chez les seniors au prisme de l’âge, du genre et de la classe sociale

Abstract

According to the expressivist model (Allard, 2007; 2009), information and communication technologies (ICTs) have expressive potential allowing individuals to perform their identity and, ipso facto, to reconfigure socially assigned identities with individually shaped identity. In a society marked by individualistic tendencies and values, and with ICTs rivaling traditional processes and structures of socialization, expressivism seemingly offers a relevant framework for analysis. However, this model does not appear to stand up to scrutiny when examining the ICT usage trajectories of ordinary people, especially seniors. Our critical analysis of ICT use by seniors – an analysis incorporating age, gender, and social class to account for naturalist ideologies that may influence these practices – offers a direct challenge the expressivist model. The findings demonstrate that the uses of ICTs are conditioned by social relations that, may reflect relations of domination but which are also subject to individual social characteristics. Ultimately, ICT usage, depending on the situation, can provide individuals with a means to circumvent dominant norms and thereby engage in emancipatory practices.

Keywords

• seniors
• ICT
• uses
• gender
• sex
• social class