Bravo-Segal Stephany, Villar Feliciano
Departamento de Cognición, Desarrollo y Psicología de la Educación, Universitat de Barcelona, España.
Departamento de Cognición, Desarrollo y Psicología de la Educación, Universitat de Barcelona, España.
Rev Esp Geriatr Gerontol. 2020 Sep-Oct;55(5):266-271. doi: 10.1016/j.regg.2020.06.002. Epub 2020 Jul 4.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects various age groups differently, with most deaths concentrated among the older population and those with previous health conditions. This has led to a greater presence of older people in the agenda setting of all the media. This article aims to analyse these discourses and representations related to older people as presented in the headlines of publications disseminated in 2national newspapers (ABC and El País) during the most critical phase of the pandemic in Spain.
An analysis was made of 501 headlines related to older people and the COVID-19 pandemic (380 from ABC, and 121 from El País) from the perspective of the Critical Discourse Studies (Van Dijk, 2003), as well as carrying out a content analysis.
71.4% of the headlines represented the Older adults were represented unfavourably in 71.4% of the headlines, with them being presented as a homogeneous group and associating them with deaths, deficiencies in residential care, or extreme vulnerability. The presence of certain potentially derogatory or improper terms (elderly, grandparents) was consistent with this negative representation.
In light of these results, it is discussed to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic may reinforce an ageist narrative of the older people, based on frailty, decline, and dependency, which may justify discriminatory practices directed at this sector of the population.
新冠疫情对不同年龄组的影响各异，大多数死亡病例集中在老年人群体以及有既往健康问题的人群中。这使得老年人在所有媒体的议程设置中占据了更大的比重。本文旨在分析在西班牙疫情最关键阶段，两家全国性报纸（《ABC报》和《国家报》）所发布的出版物标题中呈现的与老年人相关的这些话语和表述。
从批判性话语研究（范·迪克，2003年）的角度，对501条与老年人及新冠疫情相关的标题（380条来自《ABC报》，121条来自《国家报》）进行了分析，并开展了内容分析。
71.4%的标题对老年人呈现出负面描述，将他们视为一个同质化群体，并将他们与死亡、机构照护缺陷或极度脆弱性联系起来。某些潜在贬损性或不当词汇（老年人、祖父母）的出现与这种负面描述相符。
鉴于这些结果，讨论了新冠疫情在何种程度上可能强化基于虚弱、衰退和依赖的对老年人的年龄歧视叙事，而这种叙事可能为针对这部分人群的歧视性做法提供正当理由。
