Advertising old(er) men : Swedish old(er) men reflect on "seeing themselves”

Adverts tell a story and comprise images that old men encounter in their everyday 5 lives, and which provide popular scripts on ageing masculinity. This chapter focuses 6 on old men’s own understandings of advertising and their depictions of old men. 7 Focus group interviews with Swedish old men, aged between 65 and 92, were 8 conducted, with commercial adverts featuring old men used as visual prompts to 9 invite discussions on masculinity and ageing. The advertising shown reflects both 10 negative and overtly ageist images, and images of the so-called successfully ageing 11 old man; adverts appealing to identification and aspiration, adverts inciting laughter 12 and appreciation, and adverts creating a sense of resistance or rejection. Different 13 readings of the shown adverts emerged, which point to the polysemic nature of media 14 texts. The chapter discusses prominent themes from the transcribed and coded focus 15 group interviews, on embodied ageing, ageing in different stages of life, masculinity 16 and societal changes in terms of gender equality and the role and status of old men