Ageism, a Remarkable Election, and the Journalism Objectivity Norm-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Ageism, a Remarkable Election, and the Journalism Objectivity Norm

Published:2023-11-23 Issue: Volume: Page:
ISSN:1077-6990
Container-title:Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
language:en
Short-container-title:Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Author:

Chen Khin Wee¹²,Lewis Norman P.³⁴^ORCID,Altourah Albaraa F.¹⁵

Affiliation:

1. Gulf University for Science and Technology, Hawally, Kuwait

2. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

3. University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

4. University of Maryland, College Park, USA

5. University of Lille, France

Abstract

Age, rarely examined in journalism studies, became salient in 2018 in Malaysia when a 92-year-old, Mahathir Mohamad, unexpectedly became the world’s oldest elected head of state, and he named a 25-year-old, Syed Saddiq, to his cabinet. A content analysis of 1,376 stories published worldwide revealed that journalists treated the ages of the two men infrequently, similarly, and cautiously. Variance occurred with Hofstede’s collectivism-individualism dimension of the publications’ national bases, and in the application of descriptive adjectives, which changed with the election. Overall, the judicious treatment of age shows support for the journalistic objectivity norm.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Communication

Link

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/10776990231196086

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