Painted in Broad Strokes: English-Language News Media Coverage of Home Care in Relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada

Abstract

As eldercare forefronts mainstream news media during the COVID-19 pandemic, these media accounts may draw on and/or further reshape public understandings of home care in Canada. A frame analysis informed by critical discourse theory was used to examine 56 English-language articles related to home care (March 2020–March 2021). Home care is often “tacked on” to discussions of long-term residential care and is constructed by what it is not, by what it is a preferred alternative to, and by what it might circumvent (i.e., neglect, contagion). Infused with taken-for-granted meanings and linked to population aging and system crisis, home care is positioned as the progressive future of Canadian eldercare. Although home care investment is a common call, at times the gravity of the problem is imbalanced against small-scale individualistic solutions. Inequities of home spaces and impacts on families are obscured, with homes characterized as idealized places of dignity and (relative) safety. Older adults are positioned as vulnerable, passive victims, in contrast to their benevolent helpers. The authors discuss how we can clarify and strengthen political advocacy and public discourse around eldercare without reinforcing compassionate ageism, apocalyptic demography, and fear of aging while recognizing the nuances around receiving care in either home or residential settings.