Problematic Demography: Representations of Population Ageing in the Swedish Daily Press

Abstract

The ageing of populations has been a topic of discussion during the last few decades, but how is this subject represented in the media, and what images of old age are produced? In this article we present the results of a quantitative content analysis that investigates how the concept of population ageing has been represented in Swedish local and national daily news press between 1988 and 2009, and the old age positions that are offered in these representations. We also use discourse analysis in order to qualitatively examine the ways in which the concept of population ageing is articulated in these news press articles and the old age positions that are thereby constituted. The results show that the concept is constituted as a naturalised expert concept, and is primarily used in order to contextualise articles about future political and economical difficulties or even crises. By articulating population ageing with both political policies, political economy and older people's (as a group) reported need for care and services, population ageing was constituted as a political economic concern rather than a problem for the aged individual.

”I trust what’s written but I don’t think it’s good”: Old age pensioners’ persistency in the practice of obtaining information from the news media

“…Four had held white-collar jobs; fi ve had been self-employed; four had been employed as care workers; and two had been seasonal workers. Th e interviews were carried out as part of a larger study concerning cultural notions of population ageing in northern Sweden (Lundgren & Ljuslinder, 2011a, 2011b. We wanted the participants to talk about their thoughts on demographic ageing and how knowledge about this demographic process aff ected them in their everyday life and to talk about their thoughts on what was reported on the matter in the news media.…”

“…Our argument is that, in order to explain media practices without falling back on stereotypical and possibly ageist explanations, we need to take into account the discursive construction of desires and considerations that comprise much more than the medium itself (Lundgren & Ljuslinder, 2011a, 2011b. In this sense, this study also contributes to the growing fi eld of discourse theory.…”

Barn og eldre marginaliseres som kilderi mediene

“…Når eldre omtales i mediene, presenteres både positive og negative stereotypier. Den ene vektlegger de slitne, syke og svake eldre, og den andre vektlegger nye, positive roller for eldre (Gilleard & Higgs, 2005;Lundgren & Ljuslinder, 2011;Nilsson, 2008). Flere undersøkelser viser at kvinner i enda større grad enn menn er usynlige og «går fortere ut på dato» når det gjelder medierepresentasjon (Eie, 1998;Dahl & Klemetsen, 2000;Murphy, 2004).…”

The Invisible Women: Gender and Caregiving in Francophone Newspapers

“…Nonetheless, two basic expectations can be derived from earlier writings on aging in the media. First, research from many countries state that population aging is increasingly being discussed as a political economic problem featuring rising costs for social program and depicting seniors as becoming a burden (Lundgren & Ljuslinder, 2011;Rozanova, Northcott, & McDaniel, 2006). Thus, we would expect a large number of articles emphasizing how seniors are producing a burden on caregivers having difficulties navigating maintaining their status on the labour market.…”