This article presents five poems constructed from interviews with older people adjusting to living in residential aged care. They are part of the “Inside Aged Care” project, ongoing longitudinal phenomenological research tracking the lived experience of aged care from the perspective of residents, family members, and service providers. Poetry, through the process of poetic transcription, provided an engaging, evocative, and almost visceral way to help us appreciate what it might be like to be aging in aged care. To date, despite a growing body of work documenting the importance and impact of research in the form of poetry, applying a literary lens is rare in gerontological research. At a very practical level, therefore, we hope these poems help older people, their families, students, and those working in aged care better understand the unique world and perspective of new aged care residents.

The skyrocketing number and severity of issues in Australian aged care led to the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in 2018. Yet, compared to other Royal Commissions, media coverage has been relatively muted, and public awareness and engagement with aged care issues has been uneven. Journalists bear a significant responsibility for shaping the national conversation about aged care, and ensuring this demographic is reflected in the news Australians consume. Due to their unique properties, images are especially important in giving visibility to this historically marginalised topic, and to emotionally engaging an often apathetic public. As such, this study focuses on the aged care visuals accompanying Australian news coverage during the period of the Royal Commission's announcement through to four weeks after the government's response. Drawing on the lens of symbolic annihilation, it does this through a visual analysis that examines who or what is represented and the role of news values in shaping the selection of images included with news reports over this period.

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