Challenging gendered and ageing normative stereotypes on Instagram

This chapter aims to analyse how a collective appropriation of active ageing occurs on the Instagram platform in posts that use hashtags on active ageing in Portuguese (#EnvelhecimentoAtivo) and Spanish (#EnvejecimientoActivo). Due to a lack of research in the field, we were particularly interested in gender representation, but we approached it intersectionally, considering the relation to class, sexuality and ethnicity. By using digital methods, qualitative analysis – textual and visual, in addition to co-tag network analysis, it was possible to identify that the most common categories of posts, regardless of the community studied, reproduce traditional values of sexuality (heteronormative) and unique patterns of class (middle), gender (binary) and skin colour (Caucasian). Nevertheless, there is an advance in the perspective of older people as responsible and capable of taking care of themselves, in a less infantilised or inept view of older men and women.