Ageism during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In 2021, five decades after it was first defined, ageism was declared by the World Health Organization to be a global challenge that needs to be addressed. This article reviews the potential ageist elements in social media, the mass media, and healthcare practices directed towards older adults during a recent global context, the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence indicates that some presentations relating to older adults in the mass media and social media contained ageist elements ranging from the more subtle forms of ageism to more explicit forms, such as nicknames given to the COVID-19 pandemic in social media (e.g. ‘Senior Deleter’). Evidence also reveals that during the pandemic some medical practices were ageist.