In:
Mobile Media & Communication, SAGE Publications, Vol. 11, No. 2 ( 2023-05), p. 294-311
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic saw the digital amplify all aspects of our lives—work, sociality, health, intimacy, care, and inequality. In a time of restrictions and physical distancing, the role of the digital for social inclusion—especially for older adults—was heightened with many having to care at a distance. Our study focuses on older adults from Wuhan and the role of the dominant social media app, WeChat, for intergenerational informal care through digital literacy during and after the pandemic. Often characterized in global media as the place where the virus began, many of the quotidian experiences of Wuhan people have been overlooked. We reflect upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Wuhan in 2020–2021 with 10 households. We are particularly interested in how kinship care practices in Wuhan households—as sites for complex configurations of intergenerational practices that converge digital, social, and material worlds—have shifted during the pandemic. We ask: what are the learnings, opportunities and limitations around smartphone apps like WeChat for informal care as part of filial piety? In sum, what are the possibilities and limitations for mobilizing care?
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
2050-1579
,
2050-1587
DOI:
10.1177/20501579221150716
Language:
English
Publisher:
SAGE Publications
Publication Date:
2023
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2684519-2
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2686704-7
SSG:
24,1
SSG:
3,4
SSG:
3,5
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