Índices sociais de valor: Mass media, linguagem e envelhecimento

Abstract

This paper aimed to analyze the media discourse in relation to the process of human aging, through news reports published in the newspaper Gazeta do Povo (city of Curitiba, state of Paraná - southern Brazil) and collected in 2008. The reports were organized and analyzed from the following aging stereotypes found in social practice: aging and degeneration of biological functions, aging and the absence of a social role for the elderly, and aging and the active elderly, responsible for their old age. The study is of interest both to health professionals - such as speech therapists and psychologists, who work with a conception that considers language as constitutive of subjects -, and to social communication professionals, who work with the media and interfere in social representations, in the social mental imagery.