Discourses on Aging in the Media: A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis of American and Chinese Online News Coverage

For the first time in history, the global population of adults aged 65 and older now exceeds that of children under five. This demographic shift carries profound social implications, making the study of aging and its discourse more urgent than ever. While scholarly interest in aging discourse is growing, cross-cultural studies grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis remain limited. Drawing on the methodological synergy of Corpus Linguistics and Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis, the present thesis aims to address that gap by providing a corpus-based investigation of the discursive construction of aging and the representation of older adults in U.S. and Chinese online news media. The analysis found that in the U.S. corpus, ageing is largely constructed through discourses of physical health, where narratives of agency and vulnerability intertwine, whereas the CHINA corpus privileges social and economic participation, particularly through the promotion of the 'silver economy'. Given the potential of media representations to affect societal perceptions of ageing, the findings of the present study bring to light and raise awareness of ageist discourses circulating in media. They thus contribute to the construction of more positive narratives of later life.