Age

• White et al found there is a double standard in depictions of the elderly. Older men are allowed to pair up with younger women, but older women are victims of symbolic annihilation
• Biggs found that elderly people were often portrayed as incompetent or difficult
• Featherstone and Hepworth found that magazines targeting older people promoted images of youthfulness
• Newman said class influenced representation of age. Middle and upper class older people were often shown as having higher status
• Lee et al found that older people in advertising were shown as enjoying a golden age, being active and healthy
• The ageing population means the emergence of the grey pound - Lee et al say media producers are reinventing representation to market to this group
• Within the digital divide, older people are less likely to have access to technology
• Young children are usually presented positively as little angels, or sometimes as little devils
• Chandler talks about how children are targets of advertisers, to leverage the pester power they have
• Gordon et al say children are sometimes presented as victims, vulnerable and in need of protection
• Cohen identifies that youth subcultures are often the subject of moral panics
• Wayne et al found that young people were rarely given a voice in the media, while being presented as deviant or criminals
• However, young people are also a huge target demographic for a lot of media. Some positive representation in targeted media and on social media
• Pearson found that no matter the date, the golden age was always 20 years ago when the youth were better behaved