Let me grow old and senile in peace: Norwegian newspaper accounts of voice and agency with dementia

Siiner, Maarja

doi:10.1017/s0144686x17001374

Cited by 11 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…These metaphors rendered the individual merely a passive vessel within which the syndrome progresses, excluding the person from the narrative. This supports previous assertions that the voices of people with dementia tend to be notably absent from news reports of the syndrome (Van Gorp and Vercruysse, 2012; Siiner, 2019). Meanwhile, pharmaceutical interventions took on heroic significance, framed as the only possible solution to prevent dementia.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Headlines such as ‘Alzheimer vaccine passes crucial test’ (Kirkman, 2006) raise expectations and hopes for an imminent cure, which is at odds with the scientific reality, while framing dementia within this biomedical discourse obscures the relevance of the social and political impact of the syndrome (Clarke, 2006). Moreover, the discourse of biomedicine prioritises the voices of scientists and clinicians at the expense of those with the condition, such that people with dementia are significantly absent in stories about dementia (Van Gorp and Vercruysse, 2012; Siiner, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Battles and breakthroughs: representations of dementia in the British press

2019

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Media coverage of dementia can influence public and professional attitudes towards the syndrome, shaping societal knowledge of dementia and impacting how people with dementia are cared for. This paper reports on a study of news articles about dementia published in the British press in the years 2012-2017. The analysis combines the tools of corpus linguistics, a methodology for quantitatively surveying a vast amount of electronic linguistic data, with the qualitative perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis, which seeks to uncover dominant discourses and ideologies. The most salient discourse that emerged from this analysis was the portrayal of dementia in biomedical terms, with a particular focus on the pathological processes of dementia, and pharmaceutical treatments and research. Keywords relating to this discourse are interrogated in detail, illuminating the linguistic strategies through which the pathology of dementia and people with dementia are depicted. This study highlights the challenges that this type of reporting presents to people living with dementia and their families, and points to the relevance of a discursive approach to understanding societal perceptions of dementia.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Battles and breakthroughs: representations of dementia in the British press

2019

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“…traditional media, academia), and how this knowledge is organised, produced and reproduced. Therefore, we approached discourse analysis as a method informed by social constructionism – a critical stance towards analysing how social problems, in this case, how understandings of ageing and older people are ‘constructed and presented in a broader intertextual and socio-political (con-)text’ (Siiner, 2019: 981–982).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ageing, old age and older adults: a social media analysis of dominant topics and discourses

2019

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Whilst representations of old age and older people in traditional media have been well documented, examinations of such representations within social media discourse are still scarce. This is an unfortunate omission because of the importance of social media for communication in contemporary society. In this study, we combine content analysis and discourse analysis to explore patterns of representation on Twitter around the terms ageing, old age, older people and elderly with a sample of 1,200 tweets. Our analysis shows that ‘personal concerns/views’ and ‘health and social care’ are the predominant overall topics, although some topics are clearly linked with specific keywords. The language often used in the tweets seems to reinforce negative discourses of age and ageing that locate older adults as a disempowered, vulnerable and homogeneous group; old age is deemed a problem and ageing is considered something that needs to be resisted, slowed or disguised. These topics and discursive patterns are indeed similar to those found in empirical studies of social perceptions and traditional media portrayal of old age, which indicates that social media and Twitter in particular appears to serve as an online platform that reproduces and reinforces existing ageist discourses in traditional media that feed into social perceptions of ageing and older people.

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“…Research on the news coverage of aging and older adults has been on the content, as well as the discursive elements, of newspaper articles (e.g., Bailey et al, 2019;Fealy et al, 2012;Koskinen et al, 2014;Marier & Revelli, 2017;Siiner, 2019). For example, through critical discourse analysis, Fealy and colleagues (2012) found that older adults were portrayed as subject to frailty, dependency, and vulnerability, effectively "othering" them (Fealy et al, 2012).…”

Section: The Portrayal Of Old Age In the News Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Pure Panic”: The Portrayal of Residential Care in American Newspapers During COVID-19

Allen

Ayalon

2020

The Gerontologist

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Background and Objectives This study examines the discursive construction of residential care during the COVID-19 pandemic in three leading American newspapers: The New York Times, USA Today, and The New York Post. Research Design and Methods A total of 54 news articles between 21 January and 8 May 2020 were identified from the LexisNexis academic database for analysis. The articles were analyzed using both a critical discourse analysis approach and a thematic analytical framework. Results Findings indicate that residents’ voices are excluded and superseded by others, namely their family members. Literary elements were used to portray residential care as shockingly dangerous, deceptive, and problematic. Blame was often assigned to an individual or group according to the political tendency of the newspaper. Discussion and Implications A cultural model of panic and dishonesty begins to take shape through the COVID-19 pandemic. Fearmongering and the portrayal of residential care as lacking transparency will likely create future mistrust of the industry. The depiction of vulnerability and the illusion of resident inclusion in the news coverage enable paternalistic decision-making and care practices in the name of supposed protection.

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Let me grow old and senile in peace: Norwegian newspaper accounts of voice and agency with dementia

Cited by 11 publications

References 40 publications

Battles and breakthroughs: representations of dementia in the British press

Battles and breakthroughs: representations of dementia in the British press

Ageing, old age and older adults: a social media analysis of dominant topics and discourses

“It’s Pure Panic”: The Portrayal of Residential Care in American Newspapers During COVID-19

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