ABSTRACT
Semiotic regimes are the ways in which semiotic practices are regulated in specific contexts.
They include codification, tradition, expertise, role models, and technology (Van Leeuwen, 2009). They also apply to semiotic production as well as to semiotic interpretation.
Ageism, as a semiotic regime, is expressed in conflicting discourses: in the media (TV/magazine ads), in urban spaces, in beauty product brand communication, and in personal narratives, where people express their different views on getting old. Fundamentally, discourses of ageism intersect with questions of gender and race.
This chapter addresses the semiotic representation of older women, taking into consideration that the vast majority of public discourses that refer to middle-aged and old women tend to support and perpetuate the culturally constructed assumptions that ‘ageing’ is a story of decline and has strong negative associations. They also tend to legitimate contemporary bias against older women through lifestyle procedural/persuasive discourses.
In order to understand and identify age-related stereotyping and the associated issues of gender/age, sexism/ageism, I will examine media reports and public multimodal representations of age, through the lenses of social semiotics and feminist theory.
I will claim that the ageing female body is represented in competing and ambivalent discourses. I will also claim that in postfeminist times, ageist and sexist ideologies are powerfully, yet covertly, present and normalised in public discourses.
