Covid-19. Representaciones sociales mudas del viejismo en los medios de comunicación

Abstract

Regarding demographic and social aspects, most of large regions worldwide have managed their population to live longer. This relative and percentage importance has meant that these old age groups are, more often than not, considered for different public policies, where many circumstances, such as the lack of physical and/or mental health, productivity, dependency and vulnerability are taken into account. Years old is associated to negative attributes, then stereotypes that do not correspond to the reality of older people are created. Researchers use the terms agedness or ageism to refer to this concept. Regarding Covid-19 pandemic, currently ongoing in Mexico in 2020, a question may be asked, what is the social representation (SR) broadcast by the Mexican media about older people and the so-called Covid-19 pandemic? The contribution shows a progress in research on subjective well-being in older people. As a theory, social representations (SR) deals with the way people appropriate the knowledge and information circulating in society; how in everyday life, social thought, popular knowledge or common sense is constructed. Thus, in this process, people construct their own attitudes, beliefs, emotions, explanations and behavior through communication between individuals, SRs are built and rebuilt in groups and societies. There is a type of representation called mute, which do not involve verbal language. They are usually images, photographs, among other ways of disseminating information. Qualitative methodology and open theoretical sampling were used for analyzing communication promotions were analyzed in the Mexican print and visual media regarding the presentation of old age as part of the Covid-19 communication campaign. The results report physical aspects, clothing, objects to support the old age image, which show vulnerable social representations, contribute to agedness.