A CASE STUDY OF AGEISM IN POLITICAL DEBATES: ARE SOCIAL MEDIA A LATENT SOURCE OF GENERATIONAL HATRED?

• Authors: Vidovićová Lucie , Honelová Michaela
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper discusses how negative stereotypes, cultural conflicts and tensions related to age and generational membership are used in election campaigns. The social media are presented here as a venue where the political values are discursively paired with age and generational membership and perpetuate risks of an increase in ageism and generational conflict in symbolic universes. It presents a case study of YouTube video political campaigning and Facebook site commentaries to draw a picture of negative connotations used to build the “we” versus “them” generational categories which may result in further deepening the ageist moods in Czech society. It further shows, how these discursive practices may influence the perception of intergenerational relations in our society, but it also argues that they may have only limited influence over the actual behaviour of both younger and older in elections and political representations. The conclusion calls for deeper understanding of connections between generational conflict, age, and voting behaviour.

Keywords

EN

INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICT; POLITICS; SOCIAL MEDIA; MEDIA; YOUTUBE; FACEBOOK; AGE; GENERATIONS

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 66
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 203 – 220

Contributors

author

Vidovićová Lucie

• Office for Population Studies, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University (FSS MU) Brno, Joštova 10, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic

author

Honelová Michaela

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.26363/SN.2018.2.03