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Images of Old Age in the Hong Kong Print Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Heather Gibb  and
Eleanor Holroyd
Heather Gibb
Affiliation:
Professor of Nursing, Aged and Extended Care, University of Technology, Sydney West Wing, St Leonards Campus, c/- PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW, Australia20007.
Eleanor Holroyd
Affiliation:
Department of Nursing, Chinese University of Hong Kong
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Abstract

The present study set out to identify how the experience of being old in Hong Kong is represented through images commonly recurring in the print media. A case is presented for how the media not only reflect social images and views on ageing, but actively participate in the social construction of views about being old. Two newspapers in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post (English medium) and the Sin Tao (Chinese medium), were surveyed and contents of stories depicting old age were analyzed, using a qualitative and quantitative methodological design. Dominant amongst the themes was vulnerability in old age. Newspapers used stories according to journalistic formulae to present both negative and positive depictions of old age; however, positive stories carried a sense of the exceptional rather than ordinary life. Results were analysed through a comparison between the two Hong Kong newspapers as well as a comparison with a similar study undertaken on the Australian print media.

Keywords

Experience of old agestereotyped viewsmediasocial construction of images
Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , March 1996 , pp. 151 - 175
Copyright
Copyright Cambridge University Press 1996

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