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Paper how the media representation of the elderly contributes to the prevalence of negative stereotypes about them
Questions about ageism through the media
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In all of these articles we can see a one-sided message that media has created distorting the view of aging. Media is the platform to communicate meanings and experiences of aging between generations, which often leads to ageism. Media portrayals of ageing not only reflect the widespread ageism in society, but also largely reinforce negative stereotypes. When aging is depicted in a manner that appears positive, the aim is often to push anti-ageing messages and frame defying ageing as the only example of successful ageing. One disturbing implication is that this age disparity, along with the relative absence of middle-age women on television, perpetuates the idea that women must remain youthful in appearance, This places women in a disadvantaged position do to …show more content…
Marketers and advertisers make choices every day that have an impact on how society views ageing. It is becoming increasingly untenable for advertisers and the advertising industry to continue either to portray older people in a negative and stereotypical manner or to ignore them completely (Carrigan and Szmigin, 2000). Advertisers need to start associating their products with older models and know by doing that it doesn’t create any negative connotations for the future consumer. Finally, commercials that contain older adults and products they represent are being promoted very little, which indicates that commercials containing older adults may emphasize different cultural values to viewers. In result, these cultural values may reinforce negative perceptions of the aging process, even while portraying individual older adults in a positive light (Zhang, Harwood, Williams, Ylänne-McEwen, Wadleigh, and Thimm
In “On Reading a Video Text,” Robert Scholes discusses the idea of cultural reinforcement within television commercials. Scholes claims that television commercials remind viewers of their social whereabouts and displays their association with society. Commercials are played year around and people have the chance to view and form their own values and beliefs based on what they see. For instance, Scholes blatantly describes to his audience that the Budweiser commercial from the 80s focuses on more than just advertising their product; they try selling a message. Two and a half decades later Budweiser is at it again. In a recent Super Bowl commercial they focus in on a similar aspect, the American Dream. Only this time it is a little more
Many television commercials choose to feature a contrast between youth and maturity as their subject. An “Oreo Cookie” commercial, for example, features a little girl who is about four years old mimicking her grandfather’s actions in eating a cookie. Another commercial advertises the popular theme park, Six Flags Great Adventure. This commercial, entitled “The Six Flags Dancing Man,” features an elderly man dancing like an enthusiastic child. This relates to Stephen King’s idea in “My Creature from the Black Lagoon,” that adults long for and are often reminded of their childhood. Meanwhile, Rita Dove’s essay, “Loose Ends,” and Marie Winn’s essay, “Television Addiction,” each presents the great influence television has on life, often because of television’s great aspect of reality. Together, these ideas support the reasoning behind an advertisement’s attempt to sell abstract ideas. By using youth and old age in commercials, advertisers can sell nostalgia as a way of making commercials more memorable.
In this generation businesses use commercial to persuade different types of audiences to buy their product or to persuade them to help a certain caused. If you analyze commercial you can see how certain things play a major role in the success of a commercial. The ad I decide to analyze as an example is the commercial snickers used during the Super Bowl in 2010;”Betty White”-Snickers. This commercials starts off with guys playing a game of football with an elderly women know as Betty White. As Betty White tries to play football she is tackled to the ground. Her teammates refer to her as Mike when they come up to her to ask why she has been “playing like Betty White all day”. This helps inform the audience that Betty White is not actually playing but instead represent another teammate. As the guys keep arguing Mikes girlfriend calls her over and tells her to eat a snicker. Betty White takes the first bite and then suddenly a man appears in her place ready to finish the game. At the end of the commercial the statement "You're not you when you're hungry" is shown followed by the Snickers bar logo. What this commercial is trying to show is that hunger changes a person, and satisfying this hunger can change you back to your normal self. They use different types
Everyone loves old people. The elderly as a whole are viewed as a wise, tough, and compassionate group. Dodge takes advantage of this fact in their most recent commercial featuring elderly people who are all around 100 years old, to associate their brand as a well established, trustworthy, and reliable company. The ad is effective in leveraging the wisdom and knowledge of the elderly while associating Dodge as a brand that utilizes ethos, pathos, and logos in their commercials. Dodge takes advantage of societies general admiration and trust in general for the elderly and use these feelings to try and persuade people to purchase their vehicle, in particular the Dodge Challenger.
An effective advertisement is able to persuade its viewers by providing informative facts about a brand that help create a sense of liking, which will enhance certain attitudes and feelings about the brand from the target audience. If an advertisement is effective it will be able to persuade its target audience. The persuasive appeals used in the Bud Light Party advertisement are source likeability, humor appeal, and appeal to broad cultural values, specifically patriotism. This paper will analyze how these three persuasive appeals can make an advertisement successful by grabbing the attention of its target audience, the millennial generation, making them more likely to have purchase intentions due a connection made between the advertisement
Another example of ageism in an advertisements is one found at http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/ageism/pics/ageism8.jpg. This is an advertisement for a brand of camera bags. The ad says “The old bag you’ll actually love,” and pictured on it is a picture of an elderly woman’s stomach. This makes it seem like older people are not loved, which would probably make them feel awful about themselves. On the other hand, that certain company may not have gotten many sales for their products because of their use of that picture. The ad also is using some name calling as well by saying older people are old
While there are some examples of movies portraying aging in a positive light, more often movies and the media portray aging as negative. The movie ‘The Intern’ is an example of this. In the movie a company creates an intern position for a senior citizen, which they hope will assist with their company image. The company hires a 70-year-old male. There are many negative stereotypes and points where aging is viewed negatively within the movie, including the technology gap, where the intern cannot use emails or create a facebook account, the intern carries an old 70s style briefcase
Where, women are condemned for ageing more than men are. Media greatly highlights the stereotypical notion of ageing, especially in the aspect of portraying men and women and their social roles through advertisement. I will be discussing the double standard of aging in the media, as well as the double standards that address certain characteristics that promote these stereotypes. In the media, advertisements portray middle age men as having agentic qualities such as, independent, fighters, muscular, aggressive, dominant, energetic, always engaged in exciting activities that show great accomplishments and encourage their active sexual behaviors. Women, on the other hand, are portrayed as having communal qualities such as, dependent to men, softer, thin, feminine, loving, serving as housewives and caring for their husbands.
Prominent musician, Celine Dion, once said, “There’s no such thing is aging, but maturing and knowledge. It’s beautiful, I call that beauty.” To many, growing old is just a natural, beautiful part of life. It is inevitable. It is inescapable. The functionalist perspective of sociology states that the elderly perform a function in order to keep society running with ease. Functionalists focus on the disengagement theory and how people tend to disengage from society as they approach death. Symbolic interactionists focus on how environmental factors and relationships with others affect the aging experience, focusing on the activity theory and the continuity theory (Carl, 2011, p. 220). Conflict theorists focus on the discrepancies that arise between different age groups. They also focus on the economical side of aging and the issues that may arise due to an active elderly population (Carl, 2011, p. 221).
media focuses on older people as consumers for advertising certain products or for political gain.
Women over forty are constantly being either ignored or belittled in the media. There are countless women in their twenties and early thirties all over television and the movies. In magazines, the models tend to be much younger. Many are under twenty.
Expectations for youth have been reinforced by the media since its conception. Millennials are constantly belittled for not following in the traditional footsteps of their parents by refusing jobs that support them financially, but do not fulfill their emotional expectations or needs. In a world where we tell children they can be anything they want, there are stiff restrictions on what is truly accepted. Young adults are expected to assume roles mirroring those of past generations although the world around them is changing dramatically. However, many companies try to market against this progress by continuing to promote antiquated stereotypes. One striking example of this comes from an advertisement produced by Wells Fargo. In such, a young
Aging is a sensitive topic for many, with ageism being incredibly prevalent, as it has such a negative connotation that is attached to it (Hooyman, Kawamoto, & Kiyak, 2015). What does it mean to age in society today, when the baby-boomer population is starting to reach their old-old age status? (Hooyman et al., 2015). In order to break down stereotypes and understand what exactly it means to age within our current day society, I interviewed a married couple of 29 years, whom wished to remain anonymous, regarding their views on aging. The gentleman is sixty-three years old, and his wife is in her fifties. She was not the main focus on my interview, the gentleman was, but his wife was able to chime in and provided me with her two-sense every once in a while.
Advertising surrounds the world every second of the day. This form of influence has had the power to influence how society views gender roles ever since men and women began to appear in advertisements. Through the exposure to many different gender portrayals in advertising, gender roles become developed by society. This stems from how men and women are depicted, which forms stereotypes regarding the individual roles of men and women. People often shift their definition of an ideal image towards what they see in advertisements. From this, they tend to make comparisons between themselves and the advertisement models. Advertisements tend to be brief, but impactful. The different portrayals of men and women in advertising show that advertisements
In today’s media world, age is now one of key factors to be portrayed on social Media’s networks, because it is considered to gain more attention to the media industry than anything else. Therefore, t is on this notion that advertisement tend to play a great role, especially in the area of shaping, and molding of the minds of the public even though some individuals may not see it in their own perspective. Also, looking at the way Medias, portray age on the screen, it will be very much interesting to look into critically the way media’s advertise aging as a factor. However, when we talk about media, we are not only referring to big screen shows only rather media can come in so many ways as a form of advertisement, which helps to communication effectively to the public, example of other forms of medias are; newspapers and magazines.