The purpose of this assignment is to (a) make you more aware of the images of age underlying mass media presentations and (b) initiate your  routine use of a critical eye and enjoyment of analyzing social institutions.  The premise we are working with is that age identities are socially constructed phenomena.  By "doing" this research exercise you become engaged in systematic observation of the way the American public is routinely encouraged (and socialized) to think about age norms, aging, and the life stages of middle age and late life.  Stereotypes become easy ways for the media to convey age.  Engaging in content analysis as a research method, you can uncover the routine stereotyping.  When this issue is discussed in class, we can collectively compare and contrast different forms of age presentations found in magazine advertisements, comic strips, film, song lyrics, the photographs in news magazines, television commercials, and so on.  The research question is, how does the selected medium promote "what it means to be young or old"?  "a young man v. an older man"?  a young woman v. an older woman"?

You are welcome to select any single mass medium  -- television, newspapers, magazines, billboards, songs, fliers in the mail; and, you are encouraged to select parts of a medium -- cartoons in the newspaper, photographs in the newspaper, Dear Abbey columns, the situation comedies on television, advertising during day time soap operas v. night time soap operas, and so on. 

You ought to collect a number of observations to support whatever interpretation you offer.  For example, review at least 20 "still" presentations -- that is, 20 cartoons, 20 magazine advertisement, 20 newspaper articles on retirement.  If you do not use the print media, you should also collect at least 20 observations, such as twenty television commercials or songs.  The number twenty is not magical, it is only a message that you need to assess the consistency of an observation.  If you find something once in a collection of five observations, is the percentage reliable?  It would be difficult to make a definitive judgment on such a small sample.  If, however, you find something occurring four times in twenty, then it is safer to assume that you are observing a pattern.  Be sensitive to the limits of your observations and thus the limits of your ability to generalize from your findings.