https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3913-3030
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ABSTRACT
Older Australians, particularly those in aged-care settings, are frequently targets of persistent discrimination and marginalisation. Media portrayals of older people contribute to how broader society sees and values this demographic. Acknowledging this, the present study analyses how journalists visually cover ageing and the aged care sector during a critical event ‘frame’: the calling of, and government response to, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety from 2018 through 2021. This study recognises that the type of representation of older people in media is more difficult to examine than simply the frequency of representation. Using visual social semiotics as an analytical framework, this paper examined 351 images from a nationally representative news sample published over the 30-month timeframe. This approach has enabled us to go beyond simple frequencies of who is depicted and explore in a more nuanced way how older Australians are depicted, and with what implications.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Not all keywords returned results. For example, the keyword ‘elder abuse’ did not return any results but all keywords used are still reported for full transparency.
2. Even though conventions like whether the action is posed differs markedly between stock photography and most types of news photography, it is possible that awareness of visual tropes and stereotypes prevalent in stock photography libraries, as well as in other popular culture sources, such as movies and television shows, also affects how journalists see older people and choose to represent them.