AS media (year 12) - representation of old age

1. Make a list of all the words you would use to describe
people over the age of 60

2. To identify how old age is represented in the media

3. Cohen (2002)
 Argues that young people are relatively powerless
and an easily identifiable group to blame for society’s
problems,
 Young (typically) African Caribbean males are often
used as scapegoats by the media to create a sense of
unity through the creation of moral panic
(society’s common enemy),
 Media generated moral panics based on stereotypes
means that all young people from a specific group get
labelled as troublemakers and an antisocial problem
group.

4. What about old people? What
do you think ?
How do you feel older people
are stereotyped in the media ?

5. Older people
 Presented in the media in quite negative ways,
 Suffer from negative stereotypes more than any
identifiable group,
 Usually represented as being
poor, forgetful, antisocial, incapable of work, in ill
health, difficult and grumpy.

8. Key theorist
 Biggs (1993)
 Found that old people were represented in the media
TV sitcoms as being forgetful and difficult,
 Cuddy and Fiske (2004)
 Showed that in the US TV portrayed just 1.5% of its
characters as elderly with most of them in minor roles,
 Usually appeared on TV as a figure of fun and comic
relief usually based on ineffective mental, physical and
sexual capacities.

9. Gender differences
 Male
 Represented as sexual partners of younger women
(Clooney, Heffner, Willis)
 Political or religious leaders (Mandela)
 Successful business people ( Branson, Murdoch)
 Experts, authoritative journalist, and commentators.
 Female
 Seen as invisible as they are expected to remain
youthful and forever young.
 Lack of positive roles.

10. Szmigin and Carrigan (2000)
 Study of the views of advertising executives in 19
London agencies,
 Types of products and services which could
appropriately be represented by older people,
 Agencies wary of using models which they believe
might alienate pupils.

11. Szmigin and Carrigan (2000)
 Growing number of people in the populations have
changed advertising,
 More older women with money to spend (the grey
pound),
 Increase of positive images of ageing and positive
roles for older women,
 Conglomerates pursuit of the older people’s market.

12. Visual example ....
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vilUhBhNnQc
Write a response to the following
statement:
Representations of the women in
this ad challenge media stereotypes
of age and gender

13. Feedback

14. Benidorm
 Explore the ways in which the extract constructs
the representation of age using the following
micro elements:
 Camera shots, movement, angles and composition
 Editing
 Sound
 Mise-en-scene
Finish for homework:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD_NI7ZyMy4#t=1
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