Age

• Generally, how is age represented in the media?

  Older people are under-represented and the youth are over-represented
• What were the “seven deadly stereotypes“ of children found in the media (Children‘s express newspaper)

  1. Kids as victims
  2. Cute kids
  3. Little devils
  4. Kids are brilliant
  5. Kids as accessories
  6. Kids these days
  7. Little angels
• How are children represented in the media?

  Children under 14 generally presented in a positive way, but there are stereotypes
• How are the youth represented in the media?

  Negatively

  • rebellious
  • selfish
  • problem group
  • trouble makers
• What did the study by MORI for young people now magazine (2005) find?

  Majority of stories about young people were negative (57%) with just 12% being positive

  40% of articles about young people focused on crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour
• Women in Journalism (2009) found that teenage boys are most likely to be described as… what

  • Thugs
  • Feral
  • Heartless
  • Evil
  • Frightening
  • Scum
• What did Wayne et al (2008) find out from their content analysis of 2130 news items ?

  Young people were mainly represented as a violent threat to society.

  Very rare for news items to feature a young persons perspective or opinion
• What drives the media representations of young people and what is the impact of this? (Cohen)

  News Values

  Young people are powerless and are an easily identifiable group in society to blame- folk devils, scapegoats

  = can cause moral panics and lead to young people being labelled as problems
• How and why might media representations of young people be changing?

  Media stereotypes can be combated by young people themselves - citizen journalism
• How are older people represented in the media?

  Older people (late 50s+) are largely invisible in the media + portrayed negatively
• How are older people typically portrayed on TV ?

  Cuddy & Fisk (USA) : 1.5% of characters are elderly and mostly minor roles or portrayed as comedic relief

  Biggs (UK): TV sitcoms presented elderly people in similar negative ways such as being forgetful or difficult
• How can representations of older people differ by gender?

  fewer positive images of older women, who are often rendered invisible
• How are older people viewed by those who work in the media?

  Szmiin & Carrian (2000) : 19 London advertising agencies, wary of using older models in case they alienated younger consumers
• How might representations of older people be changing ?

  • The growing ageing population have money to spend “grey pound”
  • this means we can expect to see more positive images of ageing to emerge as media conglomerates pursue this market

  e.g. Dove pro-age campaign and Maggie Smith modelling for Loewe