Gerontological ageism as a social challenge and its detection in Ukrainian news media content

The mass media, being a significant factor influencing the audience, form stereotypes of old age in the mass consciousness and determine behavioral patterns in relation to the elderly. The purpose of this investigation is to identify significant trends in news content in Ukraine, including the identification of specific features of gerontological ageism, to identify discriminatory practices and to identify gerontophobic components of the media image of the retiree. The study has identified the specifics of ageism in the Ukrainian media, in particular its institutional nature, the presence of open and latent forms. It has been proved that the media promote age exclusions - the process of alienation from social and economic life, reduction of social roles using discriminatory practices of biomedicalization, marginalization, invisibilization, infantilization, dehumanization, trivialization, and patronage. Content analysis of news has allowed to construct a gerontophobic media image of people aged 60+, the core of which is the sign of the victim, the center - the offender, aggression, the near periphery - poverty, unattractiveness, inadequacy, disorientation in space, carelessness, corruption; distant periphery - selfishness, weakness, loneliness, hypertrophied thrift. The investigation has found that this is not only a problem of gerontophobia, but also in the country as a whole, because the media, on the one hand, spread what is happening in society, and on the other, determine what stereotype of old age is cultivated in mass consciousness by the Ukrainian media.