Who says you’re old?

November 26 2021

By Lisa Williams

Sometimes the weeks fly by and the blog I meant to finish writing gathers dust in the corner. So here I am three weeks late telling you about the article we wrote for Eldernet NZ’s Gazette. It’s about how the media shapes perceptions of people. In particular, how New Zealand’s print media reported on the people 70 and over during our first nationwide lockdown in 2020.

In the article we quote a woman who participated in our Have Our Say letter writing campaign. She checked in with us to see how we were going with our research and took the time read the journal article the Eldernet post is based on. This is her response to the media’s representation of older New Zealanders during the lockdown that we included in the post:

The downside of this type of constant portrayal could be the psychological effect that encourages older people to conform to the way they are expected to act i.e. frail and vulnerable when they really aren’t! Reading these papers has made me think hard about how much I’ve been affected psychologically by the constant bombardment of COVID-related news and how my life has changed as a result – and what I need to do to return to being the real me. 

To read the entire post: https://www.eldernet.co.nz/gazette/who-says-youre-old-ageism-and-the-media/