Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to an increase in stigmatizing and discriminatory discourses against older individuals in the community. Explaining that older adults are the highest risk group, labeling individuals based on chronological age instead of personal characteristics, restrictive measures taken, and the way these measures are framed and presented in mass media resources for these individuals reinforced negative stereotypes such as “illness,” “mental decline,” “uselessness,” “isolation,” and “poverty.” In this chapter, news media, as one of the sources leading to the circulation of negative messages about individuals of older age, is reviewed; stigmatizing and discriminatory statements and applications upon the appearance of older adults in Turkey in the national press (Sozcu, Hurriyet, and Sabah newspapers) are discussed, and solution have been made.
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COVID-19 disease has turned into a pandemic that affects the whole world in a period of two months. When it was declared pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, the disease had spread to 114 countries and more than 118,000 cases were detected (“WHO Director-General’s”, 2020). As of November 2, 2020, in 216 countries and territories, 46,403,652 confirmed cases and 1,198,569 deaths in total (WHO COVID-19 Dashboard, 2020) have been reported. In this period, countries have taken measures according to their own political, economic and cultural structures. Although taken at different levels in different countries during this period (Coronavirus Government Response Tracker, 2020), many practices such as closing border gates, stopping international flights, curfews, quarantine practices at various levels, transition to distance education, financial support aids, making the use of masks compulsory, banning collective activities have been implemented (Wood, 2020).
Although the measures taken differ from country to country, it is possible to say that the common point of most countries is the perspective of older age people. During this period, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that 8 out of 10 people who died due to COVID-19 in the United States were aged 65 and over, and individuals in the older age group were at high risk (“Older Adults” 2020). The WHO Regional Director for Europe said that more than 95% of coronavirus deaths in Europe are over the age of 60 (Keaten, 2020). Along with similar statements made by organizations, everyone, from politicians to mainstream media, has accepted the notion that individuals aged 65 and over are vulnerable to COVID-19 because they are under high risk. Based on this determination, the measures and practices structured for older adults have also been adopted by the public (Jimenez ‐ Sotomayor, Gomez ‐ Moreno and Soto ‐ Perez ‐ de ‐ Celis, 2020: 1661-1662). However, the way in which the measures were implemented and conveyed fed negative stereotypes and caused stigmatization. For example, during this period in Italy, using age as a criterion for resource allocation in cases where intensive care unit beds and ventilators were not sufficient, caused ethical debates (Lintern, 2020; Cesari and Proietti, 2020). Older adults abandoned in a nursing home were found dead in Spain (Martinez, 2020), The Texas’ Republican lieutenant governor Dan Patrick explained that individuals over the age of 70 can sacrifice themselves to save the American economy (Beckett, 2020). In the discussions on the implementation of herd immunity policy in the UK, it has been discussed how many deaths can be accepted, which will mostly involve individuals in the older age group (Shaw, 2020). Former Minister of Health of Ukraine, Illia Yemets used the term “corpse” for individuals of older age and stated that donors should not spend money on older people (Sorokin, 2020).
One of the driving forces of these stigmatizing practices, which cannot be considered separately from the social context, is handling aging from a biological perspective. In clinical studies that started in the middle of the 18th century, aging cells were perceived as deviations from the norm, and senility were considered a disease that should be treated. Today, the symptoms of aging are tried to be treated with anti-aging, and the old age-disease connection brought by this ongoing perspective affects people’s belief systems and attitudes. Social policies prepared with this perspective address old age as the increase in dependency and decrease in productivity, and individuals in the older adults are labeled as an economic burden and problem. The media, which reflects general attitudes towards older individuals, emphasizes the youth-beauty link with the same perspective and reinforces negative stereotypes towards older adults. (Westerhof and Tulle, 2007: 237-241). In the process of COVID-19, where the connection between illness and old age is strengthened, all mass communication channels, including the news media, which is one of the channels of transmission of the measures taken for older adults produced stigmatizing and discriminatory messages consciously or unconsciously, and have become social structures that continue to stigmatize them (Corrigan et al., 2005: 551; Reynolds, 2020: 501; Jimenez ‐ Sotomayor, Gomez ‐ Moreno and Soto ‐ Perez ‐ de ‐ Celis, 2020: 1664). In this chapter, starting from this context, the concept of stigma is described first, and then stigmatizing statements on the older adults in the newspapers in Turkey and solution offers are discussed.