Abstract
European local authorities increasingly use social media to present services and activities organized for citizens living in the particular area. Previous studies found that authority-managed social media visually depicted older adults as being active, sociable, happy, and physically capable, reflecting the normative “third age” representation. Yet few studies to date have examined how local authorities produce the photos of older adults for social media posting. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with communication officers in a Swedish municipality, the purpose of this study is to investigate the production process for social media photos of older adults within local authorities from an institutional logics perspective. The analysis illustrates that communication officers strive to create a good image of the municipality and its services, follow municipal policy and EU law on data protection, seek photos through particular sources, adjust to and develop photographic standards of good photos, and endeavor to promote social media engagement in the photos. These motives and work practices of communication officers contribute to the visual representations of older adults as engaging in municipal services, being socially active, and staying physically capable. The analysis also indicates that both social media and bureaucratic logics encourage officers to produce photos of older adults that highlight the bright side of later life. The findings contribute to previous studies on online representations of older adults generated by local authorities, by showing how the third age representation may come about in practice, and which logics may influence officers to generate such representation. Furthermore, the knowledge provided could be used as a basis for assessment and improvement on authorities' production for social media photos of older adults, which in turn contributes to more diverse and thoughtful representations of older adults and later life in authority-managed social media.
Highlights
Media is seen as one of the institutions that both shapes the image of older adults and maintains sociocultural constructions of older adults and old age (Mosberg Iversen & Wilinska, 2019)
The data extracts within this theme suggest that the cohesive visual representation of older adults in social media is facilitated and achieved through the coordination of the municipality's central administration, such as the introductory package provided to newly recruited communication officers, in-time and particular guidance disseminated by the municipality central adminis tration, and professional training sessions organized during working hours
This study identifies specific work practices and motives of communication officers that are related to the production of social media photos of older adults that cast light predominantly on the positive side of later life
Summary
Media is seen as one of the institutions that both shapes the image of older adults and maintains sociocultural constructions of older adults and old age (Mosberg Iversen & Wilinska, 2019). Levy, Chung, Bedford, and Navrazhina (2014) found that a majority of Facebook group descriptions about older adults reflect negative old-age stereotypes, such as infirmity. The majority of the studies have focused on written texts about older adults or old age, while little attention has been paid to visual images of older adults. This is despite the omnipresence of the visual being seen as one of the features of postmodernity or late modernity, and as having replaced the dominance of the word to some extent due to technological advances, the
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