Images of old age in YouTube: destabilizing stereotypes

View/ Open
Issue date
2017Suggested citation
Oró Piqueras, Maricel;
Marques, Sibila;
.
(2017)
.
Images of old age in YouTube: destabilizing stereotypes.
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2017, vol. 31, núm. 2, p. 257-265.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2016.1265098.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This article presents an analysis of the most viewed YouTube videos under the labels ‘old age’, ‘older age’ and ‘senior citizens’. As powerful sources that transmit cultural information which either perpetuates or undermines cultural stereotypes at a worldwide level, channels of information such as YouTube offer a valuable glimpse at those images of ageing and old age which are shared and consumed by nowadays viewers. This study offers an analysis of the representations of older people as well as the contexts in which they appear taking into account previous studies which focused on the representation of older people in media. The results reveal a broadly positive representation of older people, with the majority of the videos portraying a counter-stereotypic image of this age group. This overall trend represents an interesting and destabilizing path that strengthens the efforts pursued against ageism and age discrimination in our societies.
Is part of
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2017, vol. 31, núm. 2, p. 257-265European research projects
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Towards old age through memory and narrative in Penelope Lively's 'The photograph' and 'How it all began'
Oró Piqueras, Maricel (Universidad de La Rioja, 2015-01-01)This article analyses two novels by contemporary British author Penelope Lively by focusing on a recurrent topic in Lively's fiction: the interrelation between memory and narrative in order to make sense of lived time as ... -
Old Women, Young Souls: History as a Living Matter
Oró Piqueras, Maricel (Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat de Filologia, 2002)The passionate and deceptive life stories of the protagonists in Angela Carter’s Wise Children (1990) and Rose Tremain’s The Cupboard (1984), women in their seventies and eighties, are entangled with historical events that ... -
Invisible Environments: Old Age and its spaces
Oró Piqueras, Maricel (Universidad de Almería. Departamento de Filologia Inglesa, 2005-05)Despite the progressive ageing of a worldwide population, negative attitudes towards old age have proliferated thanks to cultural constructs and myths that, for decades, have presented old age as a synonym of decay, ...