It’s time for older people to take their rightful place in the media

This article first appeared in the November issue of Comet.

With so many major problems confronting us these days, should I be getting stirred up by the invisibility of older women in catalogues of clothes for which older women are a substantial part of their market? Ordinarily, probably not. But my reminder of their absence (through finally succumbing to the temptations of online shopping in this latest lockdown) came, coincidentally, with the publication of a much-needed set of guidelines for the media, “for portraying people who are older”. Called ReportAGE, and produced by the NSW Ministerial Advisory Committee on Ageing (MACA), it was launched on September 30, on the eve of The International Day of Older Persons.

In the introduction, MACA highlighted the need for such guidelines because of “growing concern about the negative influence of ageism on the community”, and the “lack of understanding” that can arise out of “inaccurate portrayals of older people”, together with the recognition of “the important role of the media in informing and influencing members of the community”.

To assist the media when “developing material about older people”, the guidelines list a number of important points to consider, such as whether the person’s age is framed as a barrier, and whether equal focus is given “to both the challenges and opportunities” in ageing. All constructive, but not directly relevant to my beef about the invisibility of older women in those catalogues.

That comes at the end of the guidelines, with some interesting statistics on the relative visibility – and invisibility – of older people represented in the media “compared to the proportion of Australian population”. People aged over 54 are 25.6 percent of the population, and 11.5% of media representations. And for the 14.2% people over 64 in the population, only 6.6% are seen in the media.

The thing about the guidelines, however, is that they are targeting stories about older people in the media. What they don’t do is look at the even more parlous state of representations – and not – of older people in that sector of the media that is actually programmed to influence us in so many ways: advertisements.

For that, we can turn to an excellent article written for marketeers reading Marketingmag.com.au earlier this year, by Emma Howe, the CMO at Mable, a platform for independent disability and aged care support workers. She stressed the important role of the marketing and advertising industry to “redress poor representation” of older people through “inclusive language”, avoiding “tired and lazy stereotypes”, and “increasing representation”, “for all our sakes”, because we’re all growing older. And that’s why it’s important to have older women in clothing catalogues.

Anne Ring ©2021