“It’s Just [Complicated] Sleep”: Discourses of Sleep and Aging in the Media

The media are influential in shaping beliefs and attitudes on ageing and health-related behaviours. Sleep is increasingly recognised as a key pillar for healthy ageing. However, the role of media representations of sleep are yet to be assessed with regards to discourses of ageing. Texts from New Zealand's main free online news-source were collated using key words "sleep" together with ''ageing'', ''older'', ''elderly'', or ''dementia'' between 2018 and 2021. Contents of 38 articles were interpreted using critical discourse analysis. Discursive constructions described an inevitable decline of sleep with ageing, including impacts of both physiological decline and life stage transitions; sleep's role as both a remedy and risk for ill health and disease; and the simplification of solutions for self-managing sleep juxtaposed alongside recognition of its complexity. The audience of these complex messages are left in the invidious position of both pursuing sleep practices to prevent age-related decline, whilst also being told that sleep degradation is inevitable. This research demonstrates the complexity of media messaging and the fraught options it offers: good sleep as both a reasonable achievement to strive for and as impossibly idealistic. Findings mirror two predominant health identities available to older people, as responsible for resisting ageing or as falling into inevitable decline. This reveals additional expectations around appropriate time use and behaviours with ageing. More nuanced messaging that goes beyond sleep as a resource for health and waking productivity is recommended. Acknowledging the complexity of sleep, ageing, and society could be the starting point of such adaptation.