Abstract
The 2024 US Presidential campaign of Joe Biden has been plagued from the beginning with the “problem” of his age. Overshadowing other news events and issues, the focus on Biden’s age has dominated the discussion in a way that has virtually no other precedent in contemporary politics. Newspapers like the New York Times and media outlets like MSNBC have tried to understand why Biden’s longevity is more of an issue than his opponent, who at 79 years has not experienced the same level of scrutiny for being too old to run for President. This paper examines the coverage of Biden’s age in US media outlets, focusing on how the media handled the candidates and why they were treated differently based on age. I am specifically interested in how the press examines its own stories and tries to make sense of the portrayals coming out during the presidential campaign around Biden’s and Trump’s respective ages. My method draws on a narrative analysis of crucial selections from mainstream and left-of-center media during this period. It considers how they analyzed these differential treatments by other media outlets, including in some cases their own outlets. I then broaden the discussion to analyze how we might use these media critiques to counter some of the more pernicious aspects of ageism, which are part and parcel of contemporary cultural discourses in American media outlets.
Presenters
Margaret TallyDistinguished Professor, School for Graduate Studies, SUNY Empire State University, New Jersey, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Social and Cultural Perspectives on Aging
KEYWORDS
Ageism, Politics, Media, Elections
