Navigating the European landscape of ageing and ICT: policy, governance, and the role of ethics.

Eugenio Mantovani, Bruno Turnheim

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with a description of EU policy on ICT and ageing, with a specific interest in the role of ethical considerations in related processes. We first trace and review the development of an EU information society policy with regard to older persons, reviewing successive framings. In the next step, we address the governance dimension by identifying the EU actors and networks shaping the direction of technological change in this area, with particular attention to the role of ethics: this exercise produces an original analytical map mobilised as a navigational tool for a reflection on governing the issue at hand. For this review and the mapping exercise, the authors are guided by a research question asking how value-based decisions with regard to technological developments for the elderly are dealt within the EU policy-making process.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAgeing and Technology
Subtitle of host publicationPerspectives from the Social Sciences
EditorsEmma Domínguez-Rué, Linda Nierling
Place of PublicationGermany
PublisherTranscript-Verlag
Pages227-256
VolumeIX
ISBN (Print)978-3-8376-2957-6
Publication statusPublished - 15 Oct 2015

Publication series

NameAging Studies
PublisherTranscript

Bibliographical note

The booming increase of the senior population has become a social phenomenon and a challenge to our societies, and technological advances have undoubtedly contributed to improve the lives of elderly citizens in numerous aspects. Technology, however, has largely ignored the »human factor« and has often viewed the ageing individual as a malfunctioning machine whose deficiencies must be diagnosed – or as a set of limitations to be overcome by means of technological devices.
This volume aims at focusing on the subjective needs and fears of human beings deriving from the development and use of technology: this change of perspective – taking the human being and not technology first – may help us to become more sensitive to the ambivalences involved in the interaction between humans and technology, as well as to adapt technologies to the people that created the need for its existence, thus contributing to improve the quality of life of senior citizens.

Keywords

  • EU Information Society
  • Ageing
  • Governance
  • Policy actors
  • Ethics

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