Comparative Study Of Media Image Of The Elderly In Chinese And American Family Dramas

In recent years,"the elderly" group image has become one of the hot topics in our country.In a highly media era,people's social cognition of a certain group is often influenced by the image created by the media,especially for the vulnerable groups.As one of the most widely accepted media products,how does TV play shape the image of the elderly?Is it influenced by different cultures?This is the core issue of this paper.For this reason,this study attempts to make an empirical study on the image and mechanism of the elderly created by family TV plays in China and the United States by using the content analysis method.It is found that the family dramas of China and the United States have the characteristics of marginalization,patternization and otherness in shaping the role of the elderly,but there are many differences in the image narrative of the elderly in different countries.It shows that the independence of the role of the elderly in American family plays is slightly stronger than that in China,while the role concept of the elderly in Chinese family plays is more conservative;the number of the elderly in Chinese family plays showing negative psychological and behavioral characteristics is more than that in America,etc.This reflects that although the image of a certain social group is different in different cultural backgrounds,the common mechanism and rules in the process of media production lead to the consistency of the image of the vulnerable groups.