Aging with Television: Images on Television Drama and Conceptions of Social Reality

Abstract

Gross under-representations lead viewers to believe that old people are a vanishing breed; men seem to age slower and enjoy life longer than women.Aging is a process that starts with birth and goes on throughout life. Life styles associated with different stages of the life cycle are roles learned in a culture. Images of old age cultivate our concept of aging and the age roles we assume.Television, as the wholesale distributor of images and the mainstream of our popular culture, presents a world of places, people, and roles. Most of us experience this world with little selectivity or deviation and do so for an average of 30

Older Adults in Prime-Time Television Dramas in Taiwan: Prevalence, Portrayal, and Communication Interaction

“…8 Liu's (1987) content analysis of Taiwanese prime-time dramas also revealed that older female characters were less frequently seen on television than older male characters with only 3 out of 21 older characters who were female. This pattern of underrepresentation of older women is consistent with previous studies conducted in the United States, and other cross-cultural studies (Gerbner et al, 1980;Harwood & Anderson, 2002;Harwood & Roy, 1999;Robinson & Skill, 1995;Vernon et al, 1990;Singnorelli, 2004). These findings help structure the second and third research hypotheses in the Taiwanese cultural context.…”

“…First, older females were not significantly underrepresented in comparison with their male counterparts (by both measures of counts and screen time), whereas a consistent finding reported by U.S. investigators is that older females were seriously underrepresented on television in comparison with older males (Aronoff, 1974;Gerbner et al, 1980;Harwood & Anderson, 2002;Vernon et al, 1990). These findings are somewhat surprising and unexpected, given the commonly held cultural norms that older women in Chinese society occupy a lower status than older men (Mehta, 1997).…”

“…In addition, findings from some studies document negative portrayals of older adults (Gerbner et al, 1980) consistent with negative age stereotypes of incompetence and dependence. However, some studies found that the images of aging were relatively favorable and positive (Vernon et al, 1990).…”

El cuerpo y la corporeidad simbólica como forma de mediación

“…De hecho incluso se podría afirmar que los medios "se han convertido en las entidades transmisoras más importantes de nuestra sociedad, a menudo con un carácter incluso monopolista" (Duch, 2010: 160). Es más, la hegemonía de los medios como 'agentes socializadores' ya fue puesta de manifiesto por la Escuela de Annenberg hace décadas, a partir del pensamiento de George Gerbner (1980), quien considera que los medios están desplazando a las tradicionales instancias socializadoras como la familia, la Iglesia o la escuela.…”

Policing in an Era of Sousveillance: The Influence of Video Footage on Perceptions of Legitimacy

“…It is becoming increasingly more important to understand how media influences beliefs, expectations, and attitudes. Prior media research on television viewing has shown support for the resonance hypothesis, that the influence of the content was elevated when the viewer could relate the information to their own experience (Gerbner et al, 1980). This represents the concept of audience agency, which is the active engagement by the viewer in processing the information and constructing meaning.…”