‘Ageing well’: Discursive constructions of ageing and health in the public reach of a national longitudinal study on ageing

Gerard Fealy, Matteo Di Placido, Deirdre O'Donnell, Jonathan Drennan, Fiona Timmins, Marlize Barnard, Catherine Blake, Michael Connolly, Sarah Donnelly, Gerardine Doyle, Kelly Fitzgerald, Timmy Frawley, Paul Gallagher, Suzanne Guerin, Emanuela Mangiarotti, Jonathan McNulty, Doreen Mucheru, Desmond O'Neill, Ricardo Segurado, Diarmuid Stokes, Mary Ryder, Yeter Sinem Üzar Özçetin, John Wells and Anto Čartolovni

Social Science & Medicine, 2024, vol. 341, issue C

Abstract: Established in 2006, the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) investigates the health, economic and social circumstances of a nationally-representative sample of people aged fifty years and older in a series of biennial data collection waves. Irish newspapers have been reporting the results of TILDA for over a decade and a half, and their texts represent reports of scientific research distilled through the pen of journalists. In their totality, their texts constitute a public discourse on ageing and health. Using critical discourse analysis, we examined the discourse within the texts of a purposive sample of two national daily newspapers. As sites of public discourse, newspapers reflect social life and are influential in forming and legitimating public attitudes. Like other sites of discourse, their language-in-use is contextually located, is rarely neutral and may employ strategies to discursively construct, sustain and privilege particular social identities, including ageing identities.

Keywords: Ageing; Health; Discourse; Newspapers; Longitudinal study; Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:341:y:2024:i:c:s0277953623008754

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116518

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