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Kvinnligt åldrande i populärpress

Abstract

Ageing is not only a biological and chronological process but also one that we interpret and from which we culturally construe meaning. This article is based on a recently commenced doctoral dissertation project on cultural conceptions of age and ageing and focuses on popular press aimed at women of 40 and over. Examples from journalistic material and ads that have been collected so far are hereby analysed. The author also refers to interviews conducted with people working with advertising and magazine publishing.

Two different patterns of age and ageing representations are characteristic of the media examples in question. One of them makes us of associations between ageing and the gaining of experience, wisdom and maturity while the other portrays ageing as something we ought to fight and delay at all cost through the consumption of cosmetic products. When the ads claim that you can "look as young as you feel", they latch on to a differentiation between experienced, inner age and the age we feel others ascribe to us. Ads speak a language of transformation, promising to improve our lives. The promise in ads on anti wrinkle creams is that you can conquer time and take years off your appearance.