Unimaginable homes: Negotiating ageism through media use

The chapter draw from critical mediatization theory, critical intimacy theory, and cultural gerontology and asks: How do elderly people practice their mediatized homes? Which roles do media play in constituting and disturbing the flows of bodies into the home? Moreover: how do dominant categorizations of elderly media users intersect with and shape the home-making practices of different groups of marginalized elderly? We answer these questions by looking at two marginalized groups: Elderly who are disenfranchised and live alone and elderly who are sexually minorities living in nonmonogamous relationships.
First we analyse how feelings of dependence relate to hook-up app use and the experience of depending on so-called ‘warm experts’ when using media. Second, the use of the ‘silver surfer’ and the ‘daddy’ categories in media use is interrogated for how it calls out the ageing body and participate in the making of the mediatized home space. We conclude by returning to the research questions and making explicit how researching flows of bodies that in many ways inhabit homes of the in-between contributes to both gerontological and geomediatization research agendas.