Old People in Romanian New Media: from Undermined Identities to Social Death. A Case Study

With a qualitative methodology and an interdisciplinary approach, this paper focuses on the most prominent public narratives related to elders and old age produced in the context of the January-February 2017 collective manifestations against the attempts of Romanian government to decriminalise corruption, manifestations where old people were believed to play a negative role. The study highlights the thanatic imagery which infuses the attitudes towards ageing and old age and intensifies the negative stereotypes of old people. The findings show that, starting from the use of the social syntax of war, the diverse identities of Romanian elders are totally ignored in these narratives, while a general, narrow identity is constructed through horizontal and vertical generalization, through replacing positive stereotypes of old age with negative ones and through transforming the elders into a radical Otherness. Undermining elders’ social identities was discussed as an element of affecting their social inclusion and increasing the risk of condemning them to social death. Also it was observed and examined the existence of three major thanatic metaphors: the toothless mouth, the bowed head and living on borrowed time.