AGE (and GENDER) REPRESENTATIONS IN THE MEDIA

The purpose of this assignment is (1) to make you more aware of the subtle ways mass media develop and maintain social constructions and (2) to encourage your to critically analyze the age (and gender) images presented by different social institutions in the mass media. 

  Age (and gender) identities are social phenomena, and people often speak about "aging" as if it were a universal experience.  But describing broad trends and discussing those in later life as a homogeneous group may obscure marked differences among people within a given generation (or birth cohort).  Some of these differences are apparent when we look at the experience of aging as it varies with gender, social class, and racial and ethnic groups.  This exercise is intended to have you observe and analyze the way the American public is routinely encourage (or socialized) to think about aging.  The research method you will be using is content analysis.  You are to study the way different media promote stereotypes and reinforce identities.  This means that we need to compare and contrast different forms of age presentations found it magazine advertisements, comic strips, film, song lyrics, the photographs in new magazines, television programs, and so on.  How does each medium promotes "what it means to be young or old" or "what it takes to be a man or a woman." 

There are numerous types of media.  Develop two-person groups (dyads) and each group select one type of media.  Then, compare two social groups--elderly men and women, older women in the 1960s vs. 1980s, older working-class men v. older middle-class men, middle-aged women v. women of college-age, and so forth.  The objective is to go beyond merely reporting in a descriptive way the media presentations you see.  You need to compare the presented image of one group with another or compare one social group across two types of media.  (For example, you could examine how adult men and their fathers are presented in magazine advertising and television advertising, or how grandmothers are presented in situation comedies and magazine advertising.)  Collectively, we will teach one another what we saw. 
You are free to select your medium -- television, newspapers, magazines, billboards, songs, fliers in the mail; and, you are free to select parts of a medium -- cartoons in the newspaper, Dear Abbey columns, only situation comedies on television, advertising during day time soap operas, and so on.  Be sensitive to the limits of your "data" and how the data restrict one’s ability to generalize findings. 

Each working group ought to collect a number of observations to support whatever interpretation you offer.  For example review at least 30 "still" or "single" presentations--that is, 30 cartoons, 30 magazine advertisements, 30 TV commercials, 30 songs, 30 newspaper articles on family life, etc. 

While studying the way age-identity is constructed and reproduced through the media, sort through the information you collect and pay attention to stereotypes, to what words and phrases are used, to the way the different characters interact, and to the characters' occupation.  What are the major "messages"?  Do they differ for men and women?  Are messages tacitly stated in the characters’ occupations?  in their body language?   Avoid the strategy of selecting from the pool of media presentations the most "deviant" cases.  You goal is to discuss the patterns within presentations.  A good strategy is to develop a hypothesis around which you organize your research.  I recommend you consult the professional journals to help you review what other researchers have discovered. You also can follow aging as portrayed in mass media web-links established by Trinity College, or you can begin with the more general links set up by the U.S. Administration on Aging, Gerontological Society of America and National Council on Aging.  Also consider exploring web-based reviews of films. 
 
If you elect to present you work as a research paper, be sure you link the research you've done with either the work found in professional journal articles or with course readings. 

 
 

  Selected References 

Aronoff, C.  (1974).  Old age on prime time.  Journal of Communication, 24,  86-87.

Bell, J.  (1992).  In search of a discourse on aging:  The elderly on television.  The Gerontologist, 32, 305-311.

Bishop, J. M., & Krause, D. R.  (1984).  Depictions of aging and old age on Saturday morning television.  The Gerontologist, 24, 91-94.

Braithwaite, V. A.  (1986).  Old age stereotypes:  Reconciling contradictions.  Journal of Gerontology, 41, 353-360.

Bretl, D. J., & Cantor, J.  (1988).  The portrayal of men and women in U.S. television commercials: A recent content analysis and trends over 15 years.  Sex Roles, 18, 595-609.

Brewer, M. B., Dull, V., & Lui, L.  (1981).  Perceptions of the elderly:  Stereotypes as prototypes.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 656-670.

Buckholz, M., & Bynum, J. E.  (1982).  Newspaper presentation of America's aged: A content analysis of image and role.  The Gerontologist, 22, 83-88.

Bulcroft, K., & O'Connor, M.  (1986).  The importance of dating relationships on quality of life for older persons.  Family Relations, 35, 397-401.

Chinen, A. B.  (1987).  Fairy tales and psychological development in late life:  A cross-cultural hermeneutic study.  The Gerontologist, 27, 340-346.

Cohen, E. S., & Kruschwitz, A. L.  (1990).  Old age in America represented in nineteenth and twentieth century popular sheet music.  The Gerontologist, 30, 345-354.

Courtney, A. E., & Whipple, T.  (1983).  Sex stereotyping in advertising. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. 

Covey, H. C.  (1988)  Historical terminology used to represent older people.  The Gerontologist, 28, 291-297.

Croake, J. W., Myers, K. M., & Singh, A.  (1988).  The fears expressed by elderly men and women:  A lifespan approach.  International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 26, 139-46.

Dail, P. W.  (1988).  Prime-time television portrayals of older adults in the context of family life.  The Gerontologist, 28, 700-706.

Deutsch, F. M., Zalenski, C. M., & Clark, M. E.  (1986).  Is there a double standard of aging?  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 16, 771-785.

Downs, A. C., & Harrison, S. K.  (1985).  Embarrassing age spots or just plain ugly? Physical attractiveness stereotyping as an instrument of sexism on American television commercials.  Sex Roles, 13, 9-19.

Elliott, J.  (1984).  The daytime television drama portrayal of older adults.  The Gerontologist, 24, 628-633.

Francher, J. S. (1973).  'It's the Pepsi generation':  accelerated aging and the television commercial.  International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 4, 245-255.

Geise, L. A.  (1979).  The female role in middle class women's magazines from 1855 to 1976: A content analysis of nonfiction selections.  Sex Roles, 5, 51-62.

Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Signorielli, N., & Morgan, M.  (1980).  Aging with television: images on television drama and conceptions of social reality.  Journal of Communication, 30 (Winter), 37-47. 

Harris, A., & Feinberg, J.  (1977).  Television and aging: Is what you see what you get?  The Gerontologist, 17, 464-468.

Harris, M. B. (1994).  Growing old gracefully:  Age concealment and gender.  Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 49, P149-P158.

Hummert, M. L.  (1990).  Multiple stereotypes of elderly and young adults:  a comparison of structure and evaluations.  Psychology and Aging, 5, 182-193.

Hummert, M. L., Garstka, T. A., Shaner, J. L., & Strahm, S.  (1994).  Stereotypes of the elderly held by young, middle-age, and elderly adults.  Journal of Gerontology:  Psychological Sciences, 49, P240-P249.

Jackson, L., & Sullivan, L.  (1988).  Age stereotype disconfirming information and evaluation of old people.  Journal of Social Psychology, 128, 721-729.

Kaiser, S. B., & Chandler, J. L.  (1988).  Audience responses to appearance codes: old-age imagery in the media. The Gerontologist, 28, 692-699.

Kastenbaum, R.  (1990).  The age of saints and the saintliness of age.  International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 30, 95-118.

Kite, M. E., & Johnson, B. T.  (1988).  Attitudes toward older and younger adults:  A meta-analysis.  Psychology and Aging, 3, 233-244.

Kite, M. E., Deaux, K., & Miele, M.  (1991).  Stereotypes of young and old:  Does age outweigh gender.  Psychology and Aging, 6, 19-27.

Kogan, N., & Mills, M.  (1992).  Gender influences on age cognitions and preferences: Sociocultural or sociobiological?  Psychology and Aging, 7, 98-106.

Levin, W. C.  (1988).  Age stereotyping: College student evaluations.  Research on Aging, 10, 134-148.

McCreary, D. R.  (1990).  Self-perceptions of life-span gender-role development.  International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 31, 135-146.

Mundorf, N., & Brownell, W. (1990). Media preferences of older and younger adults.  The Gerontologist, 30, 685-91.

Newman, S., Faux, R., & Larimer, B.  (1997).  Children's views on aging: Their attitudes and valuces.  The Gerontologist, 37, 412-417.

Peterson, D. A., & Karnes, E. L.  (1977).  Older people in adolescent literature.  The Gerontologist, 16, 225-231.

Powell, L. A., & Wilkinson, J. B.  (1985).  The mass media and the aged.  Social Policy, 16 (Summer), 38-49.

Revenson, T. A.  (1989).  Compassionate stereotyping of elder patients by physicians:  Revising the social contact hypothesis.  Psychology and Aging, 4, 230-234.

Rossi, S., & Rossi, J.  (1985).  Gender differences in the perception of women in magazine advertising.  Sex Roles, 12, 1033-1039.

Schmidt, D. F., & Boland, S. M.  (1986).  Structure of perceptions of older adults:  Evidence of multiple stereotypes.  Psychology and Aging, 1, 255-260.

Silverman, M.  (1977).  The old man as woman:  Detecting stereotypes of aged men with a femininity scale.  Perceptual and Motor Skills, 44, 336-338.

Smith, M. D.  (1979).  The portrayal of elders in magazine cartoons. The Gerontologist, 19, 408-412.

Sparks, G., & Fehlner, C. L.  (1986).  Faces in the news: gender comparisons of magazine photographs.  Journal of Communication, 36 (Autumn), 70-79.

Vernon, J. A., Williams, J. A. Jr., Phillips, T., & Wilson, J.  (1990).  Media stereo-typing:  A comparison of the way elderly women and men are portrayed on prime-time television.  Journal of Women and Aging, 2, 55-68. 

Walsh, R. P., & Connor, C. L.  (1979).  Old men and young women:  How objectively are their skills assessed?  Journal of Gerontology, 34, 561-568.

Zepelin, H., Sills, R. A., & Heath, M. W.  (1987).  Is age becoming irrelevant?  An exploratory study of perceived age norms.  International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 24, 241-256.