To cite this article: Maria Edström (2018) Visibility patterns of gendered ageism in the media buzz: a study of the representation of gender and age over three decades, Feminist Media Studies, 18:1, 77-93, ABSTRACTThe mainstream media provides a constant flow of visual images of men and women, whether it is via newscasts, billboards, magazines, or television. In media research, these different media types are usually investigated separately. The aim of this study is to analyse the accumulated gender representation of all images that we passively or actively take part in, here defined as "the media buzz. " To capture the representation of gender and age in the media buzz, this study focuses on images from one day in the most circulated media within Sweden: news, feature stories, fiction, and advertising. The empirical data is drawn from three different decades-1994, 2004, and 2014. Overall, the study indicates there to be a general male/female balance in terms of numbers. However, when turning older, both men and women become almost invisible, even though older men are more visible than older women. Older persons rarely reach the news and they are more likely to be found in advertising and feature material. The work presented here suggests that the structures of visibility and the clusters of gender-age representation in the media foster stereotyping. The media buzz not only contributes to ageism, but is also still distinctly gendered.

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The study was undertaken to investigate the test-retest stability and the criterion-related validity of a modified Swedish version of an exercise motivation index (EMI), and its use with individuals with rheumatic conditions, and with healthy individuals who exercised regularly. The EMI consists of 23 statements divided into three sub-scores for physical, psychological and social motivation. Ninety-five individuals with rheumatic conditions (mean age 60 years, mean symptom duration 15 years, 79% female) and 131 healthy individuals (mean age 52 years, 76% female), all attending exercise classes at least once a week, filled out the EMI. Sub-samples also filled out three visual analogue scales designed to measure physical, psychological and social exercise motivation, and filled out the EMI a second time one week later. The results indicated that psychological and physical exercise motivation was equally important in both samples. Social motivation was less important in both samples, but more pronounced in the rheumatic sample and among older individuals. In the rheumatic sample, physical motivation was more important among women and psychological motivation was more important among younger individuals. Test-retest stability for the EMI was satisfactory in both samples, while criterion-related validity was poor. The results of our preliminary investigation of the EMI suggest that the survey of physical, psychological and social motivation for exercise seems meaningful. Further work on the validity of the EMI is needed.

Feminist journalists have come to expect special resistance, and even threats, from men's groups as part of their work as journalists. However, the biggest threats might not originate in men's groups' activities. A big threat currently comes from Internet trolls' responses to individuals who engage in hate-provoked and hate-provoking attacks on women as women. This is exemplified in the case of Anders Behring Breivik, who blew up government buildings in Oslo in 2011 and murdered youth from the Labour Party at Utøya as part of his explicitly articulated xenophobic and misogynist campaign against the Islamification of Norway. His ideas are still being shared in social media responses to this tragedy across Nordic countries. This paper argues that this demonstrates that the harms to women and to society go well beyond the individual victims of an identifiable incident. Largely because of their role in condemning and rejecting the hateful ideas advanced across social media forums, troll responses to the Breivik tragedy constitute a particular threat to female and especially feminist journalists. KeywordsJournalism; hate speech; antifeminism; gender; sexualised hate speech; Behring Breivik. Please cite this article as:

Although countries protect and promote freedom of expression in different ways, free speech can be understood to have two basic aspects in democratic constitutional systems: non-censorship and diversity of voices. This article examines how the approach to free speech in Sweden contains both these aspects. Selected comparisons with the US First Amendment, and German broadcasting law, indicate the value in the Swedish approach but also reveal challenges that it faces if free speech’s dual aspects are not clearly recognised – a danger that some contemporary statements suggests is real. Articulating free speech in terms of both non-censorship and diversity may aid Swedish parliamentary processes to uphold important structural aspects of the freedom, but it would also bring into focus larger questions about the limits of parliamentary processes alone in building a viable system of freedom of expression for the future.