XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

233

Aging and the Print Media

RC11 Sociology of Aging (host committee)

Language: English

Despite the growing use of the Internet and in addition to the enduring popularity of broadcast media forms such as movies and television, print media forms persist in their relevance and widespread use.  Scholars interested in aging have long examined the (under)representations of older adults in the print media, and have often analyzed the implications of both negative and positive portrayals of aging in magazines and newspapers.

Aiming to continue in this tradition as well as to expand its parameters, this session welcomes papers investigating any element of the relationship between aging and the print media as broadly defined – thus aging not only in relation to magazines, newspapers and books, but also aging as related to such print media formats as greeting cards or comics. Thematic content analyses of these media are welcomed, but also encouraged are less common approaches to the subject (e.g., involving audience reception or visual methods) or papers that focus on understudied and/or marginalized populations (e.g., racialized, LGBTQ or faith-based communities, or those who are aging with disabilities).