Centre for Policy on Ageing



Ageing in American comic strips — 1972-1992
Author(s)	Heather Hanlon, Judy Farnsworth, Judy Murray
Journal title	Ageing and Society, vol 17, part 3, May 1997
Pages	pp 293-304
Keywords	Drama ; Drawing ; Communication media ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Comparison ; United States of America.
Annotation	A comparison between humour and ageing from the 1970s to the 1990s showed what appears to be little change in stereotypical representations of older people in comic strips - using the variables of age, gender, and roles of people 56 years and over - published in the ' Washington Post' during April of 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987 and 1992. The number of older characters declined in the last ten years of the study. Women were almost equal to men in strong, positive roles, despite the fact that they were represented 870 times, and men 1511 times. Most women were portrayed in either positive or negative roles, while a quarter of men were portrayed in indeterminate roles. The negative roles of women were double those of positive or strong roles, while the number of negative roles for men was three times the number of positive roles.
Accession Number	CPA-970804008 A
Classmark	HKD: HA: UD: TOB: 48: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.