The main character or viewpoint represented in the discussions in each Finnish article is displayed in Table 11 by respective topics. The subject discussing ‘work, retirement and pension’ was dealt with from social, political and economic perspectives approximately six times, more frequently than a focus on the baby boomers themselves. This signifies that work- and retirement-related articles tended to treat the baby boomers more as passive objects than active players, or to position the boomers in the background of discussions, appealing more to the societal significance of such issues.
However, comparing the proportion of articles with other subject groups, namely industry/company/working place and profession/employee/worker, revealed an interesting contrast. In the latter cases, employees had a more important role than employers in constructing arguments about work- and retirement-related matters.
In the topic related to ‘ageing, health and care’, nearly half of the relevant articles were approached from the standpoint of society, government and public policy. This implies the prominent social impact of an ageing population, one dramatically accelerated by the baby boomers. On the other hand, in a substantial proportion of the articles (about 15 per cent), the baby boomers themselves or retirees and older adults in general had crucial roles in discussing questions on ageing and care. A further notable point is that newspaper editors contemplated the particular topic introspectively in about one tenth of the articles.
The baby boomers had a minor role in the topic ‘current events in economic and political affairs’. As the subject title indicates, the viewpoints of large-scale entities, such as society and government or economy and the labour market, were crucial in articulating the contents of the related articles.
Interestingly, approximately 33 per cent of the articles discussed the subject of ‘baby boomers as a generation’ in terms of citizens, family or the younger age group. Many of the articles took time to explain the gaps and differences between the baby boomers and other population groups. The baby boomers themselves were the main characters in a third of the articles. Those two actors, namely the baby boomers and rest of the people, accounted for 50 per cent of the entire number of articles dealing with the said topic of contextualising the boomers.
Looking at all articles (n=127), nearly half of them focused on society, government and public policy as the main characters or presented their viewpoints, followed by the national economy, labour market and economic policy. Social, political and economic entities played an active role in creating newspaper discourses in more than 60% of cases. This percentage stands in stark contrast to the proportion of articles in which the baby boomers took the main role in the article: 11 per cent. The predominance of social, political and economic perspectives in the media discussions implies that the portrayals of ageing baby boomers in Helsingin Sanomat investigated later in the thematic analysis tended to be articulated more in terms of how society positions the baby boomers rather than in terms of the boomers’ own opinions. The significance of society, politics and economy in the newspaper discussions might have relevance considering that the data consisted solely of editorials
and comment articles. In newspaper articles other than editorials, it is quite common that topics are dealt on a general level from social and socio-political perspectives, but while taking individual examples into account.
Table 11. Main character or viewpoint in Finnish newspaper articles by topic TopicAll articles Work, retirement & pension Ageing, health & care Current events in economic & political affairs
Baby boomers as a generationOtherN (%) Main character or viewpoint (%) Baby boomers/retirees/older adults10.415.40.016.70.014 (11.0) Society/government/public policy58.446.254.527.80.062 (48.8) National economy/labour market/economic policy6.57.736.45.60.015 (11.8) Municipality/local authority1.32.60.05.60.03 (2.4) Industry/company/working place2.62.69.10.00.03 (2.4) Profession/employee/worker10.45.10.05.60.09 (7.1) Citizen/family/younger age group6.50.00.033.375.09 (7.1) Politician1.32.60.05.60.02 (1.6) Newspaper editor1.310.30.00.00.05 (3.9) Commodity/goods/service1.37.70.00.025.05 (3.9) Total (N (%))77 (100.0)39 (100.0)22 (100.0)18 (100.0) 4 (100.0)127 (100.0) Note: One article can be categorised under multiple topics. The number of topics is given in columns 1–5 and the number of articles in column 6.
As discussed earlier in this chapter, manifest content analysis revealed the ways in which the Japanese and Finnish newspapers represented the retirement and ageing of the baby boomers on a surface level. Discussions about the baby boomers in Japan was much more frequently held in relation to their early retirement, whereas the Finnish newspaper tended to pay constant attention to the baby boomers throughout the study period. In both countries, the topic of ‘work, retirement and pension’, which predominated in the early phases of discussions, gave way to the emergence of other topics at the point of the actual retirement and advancing age of the baby boomers.
Investigations of how the newspapers chose to represent gender revealed the strong visibility of gender in Japan and invisibility of gender in Finland with respect to the ageing baby boomers. While the Japanese baby boomers served as both the main characters and in supporting roles in the debates, their Finnish counterparts generally remained in the background of the discussions.
9 PORTRAYALS OF AGEING BABY BOOMERS IN TOPICS COMMON TO JAPANESE AND FINNISH MEDIA DISCUSSIONS
Thematic analysis was used to qualitatively investigate how Japanese and Finnish national newspapers articulated retirement and ageing of the baby boomers, and thereby how social perceptions of the ageing baby boomers were created in the respective countries. I analysed the data according to each topic identified via the manifest content analysis employed previously. The research material was read, interpreted and analysed in the original languages without the help of professional translators or translation applications, meaning that the researcher had a native fluency in the Japanese language and evaluated the Finnish data as texts in a foreign language. While wary of the potential trap of skimming too quickly through the Japanese texts, the Finnish articles were read carefully while paying close attention to their implications and connotations. Reporting the results of the analyses in English required an extra effort. Since both Japanese and Finnish are linguistically distant from English, the researcher translated the citations freely when literal translation did not make sense.
Over the course of the analyses, the socio-cultural constructions of the ageing baby boomers, in other words, the media portrayals of the ageing baby boomers, became evident. Chapter 9 describes these portrayals in terms of topics common to both the Japanese and Finnish data. The common topics are
‘work, retirement and pension’, ‘ageing, health and care’ and ‘baby boomers as a generation’. In elaborating on the themes uncovered by examining the respective topics, the results of the analyses are first explained separately by country and then summarised by comparing Japan and Finland, while highlighting in particular different and contrasting aspects.