Grandma on YouTube: a case study of the older female YouTuber Korea Grandma
(2020) MKVM13 20201Media and Communication Studies
Department of Communication and Media
- Abstract
- Older women have long been invisible and marginalized in society and culture at large because of the ‘gendered’ ageist stereotypes towards them. Especially, ageist stereotypes towards older women have been reinforced by their invisibility and stereotypical portrayals in traditional media. However, with the rise of social media, elderly women have become visible in society bypassing the gatekeepers in traditional media. More specifically, older women nowadays have become to be not only visible but also popular by adopting affordances of social media which encourages people to conduct to be fame—self-branding. This self-branding practices online are often described as “micro-celebrity”. Despite a growing number of micro-celebrity activities... (More)
- Older women have long been invisible and marginalized in society and culture at large because of the ‘gendered’ ageist stereotypes towards them. Especially, ageist stereotypes towards older women have been reinforced by their invisibility and stereotypical portrayals in traditional media. However, with the rise of social media, elderly women have become visible in society bypassing the gatekeepers in traditional media. More specifically, older women nowadays have become to be not only visible but also popular by adopting affordances of social media which encourages people to conduct to be fame—self-branding. This self-branding practices online are often described as “micro-celebrity”. Despite a growing number of micro-celebrity activities of older adults, most existing studies about micro-celebrity have focused on younger generations whose daily lives and cultures are different from older women who experience double marginalization intersecting two power systems: ageism and sexism.
Thus, this thesis aims to explore the micro-celebrity practices of older women and how those practices are related to gendered ageism. In order to pursue these aims, this study takes a closer look at the case of Korea Grandma—a South Korean 73-year-old female YouTuber— to contextualize and get rich information of the practices. By conducting a multi-method approach combining visual narrative analysis and visual analysis, this study shows micro-celebrity practices of Korea Grandma provide opportunities for her to draw attention and suggest ‘alternative’ images that are disruptive to typical ageist images of older women. However, this study also demonstrates that sometimes the self-presentation of Korea Grandma is required to be negotiated by accepting social norms or consumer capitalism values. This is because of the nature of micro-celebrity practices unavoidably subscribing to ‘the attention economy’, and also due to the characteristics of the object of stereotyping being locked into existing social norms. Thus, this study points out that the micro-celebrity practices of Korea Grandma cannot entirely contribute to challenge nor reinforce ageist stereotypes. This study rather suggests that micro-celebrity practices of Korea Grandma can be understood as a constant negotiation, rather than a binary, situated somewhere between challenging and reinforcing ageist stereotypes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9009415
- author
- Kim, Min Joo LU
- supervisor
-
- Tobias Linné LU
- organization
- alternative title
- Gendered ageism, media representation and micro-celebrity in South Korea: a case study of the older female YouTuber Korea Grandma
- course
- MKVM13 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- micro-celebrity, older adults, older women, ageism, gendered, YouTube, South Korea, Korea Grandma, granfluencer, silver creator
- language
- English
- id
- 9009415
- date added to LUP
- 2020-06-16 09:20:04
- date last changed
- 2020-06-16 09:20:04
@misc{9009415,
abstract = {{Older women have long been invisible and marginalized in society and culture at large because of the ‘gendered’ ageist stereotypes towards them. Especially, ageist stereotypes towards older women have been reinforced by their invisibility and stereotypical portrayals in traditional media. However, with the rise of social media, elderly women have become visible in society bypassing the gatekeepers in traditional media. More specifically, older women nowadays have become to be not only visible but also popular by adopting affordances of social media which encourages people to conduct to be fame—self-branding. This self-branding practices online are often described as “micro-celebrity”. Despite a growing number of micro-celebrity activities of older adults, most existing studies about micro-celebrity have focused on younger generations whose daily lives and cultures are different from older women who experience double marginalization intersecting two power systems: ageism and sexism.
Thus, this thesis aims to explore the micro-celebrity practices of older women and how those practices are related to gendered ageism. In order to pursue these aims, this study takes a closer look at the case of Korea Grandma—a South Korean 73-year-old female YouTuber— to contextualize and get rich information of the practices. By conducting a multi-method approach combining visual narrative analysis and visual analysis, this study shows micro-celebrity practices of Korea Grandma provide opportunities for her to draw attention and suggest ‘alternative’ images that are disruptive to typical ageist images of older women. However, this study also demonstrates that sometimes the self-presentation of Korea Grandma is required to be negotiated by accepting social norms or consumer capitalism values. This is because of the nature of micro-celebrity practices unavoidably subscribing to ‘the attention economy’, and also due to the characteristics of the object of stereotyping being locked into existing social norms. Thus, this study points out that the micro-celebrity practices of Korea Grandma cannot entirely contribute to challenge nor reinforce ageist stereotypes. This study rather suggests that micro-celebrity practices of Korea Grandma can be understood as a constant negotiation, rather than a binary, situated somewhere between challenging and reinforcing ageist stereotypes.}},
author = {{Kim, Min Joo}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Grandma on YouTube: a case study of the older female YouTuber Korea Grandma}},
year = {{2020}},
}