Reuben Ng1,2, Ting Yu Joanne Chow1. 1. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. 2. Lloyd's Register Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Innovation 4.0, 3 Research Link, Singapore.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The World Health Organization launched a recent global campaign to combat ageism, citing its ubiquity and insidious threat to health. The historical context that promoted this pernicious threat is understudied, and such studies lay the critical foundation for designing societal-level campaigns to combat it. We analyzed the trend and content of aging narratives over 210 years across multiple genres-newspaper, magazines, fiction, non-fiction books; and modelled the predictors of the observed trend. METHODS: A 600-million-word-dataset was created from the Corpus-of-Historical-American-English and the Corpus-of-Contemporary-American-English to form the largest structured historical corpus with over 150,000 texts from multiple genres. Computational linguistics and statistical techniques were applied to study the trend, content, and predictors of aging narratives. RESULTS: Aging narratives have become more negative, in a linear fashion (p=.003), over 210 years. There are distinct shifts: From uplifting narratives of heroism and kinship in the 1800s to darker tones of illness, death, and burden in the 1900s across newspapers, magazines, and non-fiction books. Fiction defied this trend by portraying older adults positively through romantic courtship and war heroism. Significant predictors of ageism over 210 years are the medicalization of aging, loss of status, warmth, competence, and social ostracism. DISCUSSION: Though it is unrealistic to reverse the course of ageism, its declining trajectory can be ameliorated. Our unprecedented study lay the groundwork for a societal level campaign to tackle ageism. The need to act is more pressing given the Covid-19 pandemic where older adults are constantly portrayed as vulnerable.
OBJECTIVES: The World Health Organization launched a recent global campaign to combat ageism, citing its ubiquity and insidious threat to health. The historical context that promoted this pernicious threat is understudied, and such studies lay the critical foundation for designing societal-level campaigns to combat it. We analyzed the trend and content of aging narratives over 210 years across multiple genres-newspaper, magazines, fiction, non-fiction books; and modelled the predictors of the observed trend. METHODS: A 600-million-word-dataset was created from the Corpus-of-Historical-American-English and the Corpus-of-Contemporary-American-English to form the largest structured historical corpus with over 150,000 texts from multiple genres. Computational linguistics and statistical techniques were applied to study the trend, content, and predictors of aging narratives. RESULTS: Aging narratives have become more negative, in a linear fashion (p=.003), over 210 years. There are distinct shifts: From uplifting narratives of heroism and kinship in the 1800s to darker tones of illness, death, and burden in the 1900s across newspapers, magazines, and non-fiction books. Fiction defied this trend by portraying older adults positively through romantic courtship and war heroism. Significant predictors of ageism over 210 years are the medicalization of aging, loss of status, warmth, competence, and social ostracism. DISCUSSION: Though it is unrealistic to reverse the course of ageism, its declining trajectory can be ameliorated. Our unprecedented study lay the groundwork for a societal level campaign to tackle ageism. The need to act is more pressing given the Covid-19 pandemic where older adults are constantly portrayed as vulnerable.
Keywords:
Ageism; age discrimination; age stereotypes; historical analysis; media portrayals of aging; medicalization of aging; psychomics; social gerontology; social ostracism
Authors: Lotte P Brinkhof; Sanne de Wit; Jaap M J Murre; Harm J Krugers; K Richard Ridderinkhof Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2022-07-19 Impact factor: 4.614