Through the Lens of the Press: A Content Text Analysis on How Older Adults are Portrayed in Italian Newspapers (2017-2024).

Abstract

The growing number of older adults in our societies has not been matched by balanced representation in the press, which tends to portray older people stereotypically. This study used computational methods to analyze the representation of older people in a large corpus of articles from a sample of major Italian newspapers between 2017 and 2024. The results suggest that, although the range of topics associated with older people has increased compared to previous research, both positive and negative stereotypical views still prevail. However, content related to older adults is more positive than content on the same topics that does not specifically reference older adults. While the pandemic has brought renewed attention to older people, it has also increased the prevalence of negative narratives that focus on their frailty. Nevertheless, Italian newspapers have increased their focus on content related to the cultural and social life of older people, thus paving the way for a more positive perspective on ageing.