Caretaker Assaults and Crashes into Buildings: An Analysis of Ageist Stereotypes in Media Reports

• In Event: Media Constructions of Guilt and Innocence

Abstract

Media news sources contribute to the ageism in society by depicting older individuals as weak and cognitively impaired. The present study examines the media treatment of older people both as victims of crime and as non-criminal perpetrators. More specifically, we investigate the media portrayal by age of patients assaulted by caretakers and of drivers who crash their vehicles into buildings. Collecting samples of on-line media --62 incidents of caretaker assaults on adult victims and 58 incidents of single-car crashes into buildings, we obtained the following results: One-third of all reports of caretaker assaults placed the term “elderly” or “senior” in their headlines to describe their “disabled” victims. News sources over-represented reports of crashes into buildings when the driver was over 60. Moreover, many articles about car crashes specified an age category (“elderly”) for older drivers but not for their middle-aged or younger counterparts. The victimization of older patients by caretakers (i.e., elder abuse) is a growing problem that deserves to be acknowledged. The same cannot, however, be said for crashes into buildings. The assumption that incorrectly guides newspaper accounts is that old age is a causal variable. As a result, media reports continue to encourage ageist stereotyping.

Authors

• Jack Levin, Northeastern University

• Gordana Rabrenovic, Northeastern University

• Hanna Sattler, Northeastern University