Digital Ageism and the Communicative Marginalization of Older Persons: A Socio-Cultural Approach to Ageist Discourse on a Civil Society Organization's Facebook Page

Abstract

As societies age and technology rapidly advances, ageism has evolved into a digital construct, with its discourse migrating from offline to online platforms. This phenomenon, termed digital ageism, refers to a variety of personal and societal biases that include negative representations of older persons in online communication environments. Adopting the sociocultural tradition in communication as a framework for critical discourse analysis (CDA), this dissertation explores how communicative practices shape digital ageism. It identifies four Discourses of active dependency, digital deficiency, age-based exceptionalism, and automated empathy from the public Facebook page of COSE (Coalition of Services of the Elderly) – a non-government organization advocating for the welfare of older persons. These Discourses were shaped by COSE’s communicative practices that include capacitating older persons through multi-sectoral and international support, highlighting the importance of training older persons to be digitally literate, celebrating the accomplishments of older persons as age-defying expectations, and facilitating technology mediation of care. The study concludes that COSE, while it advocates for the welfare and rights of older persons, inadvertently reproduces ageism as an interplay of communicative practices in the digital realm. The study recommends future research that integrates critical gerontology with discourse analysis to provide deeper insights into the intersection of aging, language, and power. The study further recommends the incorporation of multimodal discourse analysis, encompassing text, video, and images to capture the complex and layered ways in which age-related meanings are constructed and communicated across diverse media forms.

A practical recommendation for COSE is to revisit its content creation practices by emphasizing narratives of empowerment, agency, and collaboration rather than those that imply dependency or deficiency. By adopting more enabling and inclusive discourse, COSE’s communication can both enhance the visibility of older persons as capable digital citizens and resist the reproduction of ageist assumptions in online environment