Drawing on data derived from a nationwide postal survey (n = 1264) with a simple random sample of Swedes between ages 65 and 85 (response rate: 63%), the article analyses the general patterns of: (a) degrees of information and communication (ICT) access and (b) ICT-literacy among Swedish senior citizens. The overall patterns of access and literacy are analysed in light of senior citizens’ assets – conceptualized as material, discursive and social resources – and their age and gender. The analysis reveals a positive correlation between levels of material (e.g., income), discursive (e.g., English skills) and social (e.g., social networks) resources and access to ICT. With greater resources, the average number of devices increases. The analysis also reveals a positive correlation between discursive and social resources and ICT-literacy. Gender has no bearing on access to devices, but might have some effect on ICT-literacy. The correlation between age, access and literacy is negative. With increasing age, both access and literacy decreases. In this respect, the study reveals a generational effect. However, since all three resources tend to decrease over the life cycle, the results are also discussed in terms of an age effect. These data and our analyses are contextualized by a critical discussion that reflects on the implications of these general patterns: What do they mean for senior citizens’ abilities to be included and participate in a continuously digitalizing society?

According to international statistics, Sweden is one of the world’s most internet connected nations. The most recent data reveal that approximately 90per cent of all Swedes have online access through various devices, such as computers and/or mobile phones. The fact that online access is widespread hasbeen interpreted as a useful opportunity. Among governmental agencies it has been referred to as an opportunity to make public services more availableand effective. Also healthcare has become a part of this. With the advent of online portals for health information and communication, Swedish healthcareagencies hope to be able to provide better services, but also to make their contacts with care seekers and patients more efficient. The ambition to make allkinds of societal services more accessible and effective via online applications presupposes a number of important prerequisites. It presupposes widespreadaccess to devices and ICT-applications. It further presupposes that all citizens, who are the inscribed users, have competence and skills enough to also makeuse of them. For research, senior citizens make up a specifically interesting category of citizens in this context. They have lived through the transformationsfrom analogue to digital services and are also expected to start to adapt to them. According to general, national statistics, however, their levels of access toand use of ICT-applications are clearly lower than for younger people. Meanwhile, senior citizens are by no means a coherent group of ICT-users. Hence, it isvital to attend to differences between and similarities within the overall category “senior citizens” in order to gain insights into what these transformationsmean in terms of “inclusion in” or potential “exclusion from” for varying groups of citizens. In this paper we depart from and aim to further develop the conceptmaterial resources (Murdoch et al., 1992; Warschauer, 2003; Olsson, 2007) – here measured by an index including household income and home ownership– when analysing different groups of senior citizens as ICT users. To what extent do senior citizens’ varying access to material resources influence…• …their access to various ICT-devices (computers, smart phones, iPads, etc.)? • …the ways in which these devices are put to use? • …their perceivedlevels of ICT-literacy? The paper presents and analyses data from a recent Swedish survey (November 2015-January 2016). Data are derived from a nationalSRS of 2000 senior citizens (+65 years), with a response rate of 64 percent. Out initial analyses reveal that access to material resources are influencing allof the above mentioned aspects (access to devices, use of devices, perceived literacy, and more). The correlation is, as expected, positive: with increasingresources, follows increasing access, use and sense of literacy. In the light of these data the paper problematizes emerging patterns of digital inclusion andexclusion among senior citizens and their potential societal consequences.

The development of social media applications, such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter, has offered new participatory opportunities to everyday media users. In some respects, this also marks a transformation of public space, as the broadcasting era’s “audiences” nowadays also can take on the role as participating “co-creators”. Or to put it slightly differently: Contemporary media landscape allows for new forms of coexistence between producer and user generated content. For traditional media companies, this transformation has brought both challenges and opportunities. User generated content has always played a part in media production, but the current media situation has certainly made it a more salient feature. Among online newspapers, specifically, the new opportunities to include users’ participatory practices have taken different forms. For instance, they nowadays allow for convenient Facebook-liking and users linking blog posts to articles. They also spend both time and energy on making it easier for readers to get in touch with them in order to provide pictures, information, corrections, etc. Within this context of offering new, participatory opportunities to the previous “readers”, online newspapers have also come to adapt to and develop on one specifically salient strategy: To allow readers/users to comment on articles online. Media research has already paid attention to user comments as a participatory practice. These studies have typically looked into what technological features for participation that are offered and how they enable and limit users’ participatory practices (cf. Domingo et al., 2008; Hermida & Thurman, 2008). In this paper, we take on a slightly different approach. Firstly, the paper looks into the conditions for participation in terms of topics: What content are users allowed to comment on? How do content characteristics differ between news that are made available and news that are withheld from comments? After having mapped these conditions for participation we – secondly –analyze how users actually navigate within this (conditioned) space: What news are they interested in commenting on? How does commenting vary between different kinds of articles? These questions are answered by help of an analysis of 1.100 news items and their adjacent user interface in an online news site (affiliated with a professionally produced, local newspaper). In terms of methodology we apply quantitative content analysis. Our analysis reveals that the participatory space offered to the readers is geared towards light news, whereas users themselves have clear preferences for commenting news concerning changes in their local environment, about general national politics and welfare issues. The paper concludes with a discussion on potential explanations as to why this discrepancy exists and it also further reflects on its potential implications for users’ participatory practices.

Drawing on the work of Karl Mannheim this article analyses the internet as a generational phenomenon. It makes use of two different, but in generational terms interrelated empirical materials. In the first case study, data from focus group interviews and individual interviews with a total 55 young Swedes (15-25 years). These data reveal how young Swedes tend to understand illegal file sharing as a generational issue. Among other things, they consider themselves rather than middle-aged politicians to be the actual legal authorities within the area.

The second case study is based on a youth council, Lunds ungdomsting. The research project started with an ambition to understand the internet's role in engaging young people. The initial analyses, however, revealed that although the internet plays a role, it cannot usefully be separated from other activities. We consider and analyse this observation through Mannheim's terminology: the youth council members' generational experience of the internet has naturalized it as a form of communication in a manner that makes distinctions between online and offline action obsolete.