Recareering Happily Ever After: An Analysis of Job Transition Storytelling in AARP Message Boards

• In Event: Communication and Aging Division: Competitive paper III -- Intergenerational communication, new media, and workplace

Abstract

This study analyzes computer-mediated storytelling on the AARP's website in response to two pulished articles on job transitioning. Using narrative, antenarrative, and storytelling constructs to provide a framework, data analysis reveals: 1) discursive patterns from the grand story were reproduced in three types of stories; 2) discursive resistance to the grand story was met with disciplinary messages; 3) historical and economic contexts undergirded posters’ messages; and 4) storytelling constituted a virtual community.

Author

• Elizabeth Spradley, Texas A&M University