Nergiz Gündel / Sumru Yıldırım
Abstract: In Turkey, television maintains its role as the most widely watched medium of communication. Among the programmes broadcast, comedy shows not only entertain but also bring diverse representations to the screen through content that provokes thought, offers criticism and educates. The aim of this study is to analyse how the elderly are represented in comedy programmes. The research sample consists of ninety-eight sketches selected using a purposive sampling method from the eleventh and twelfth seasons of the Güldür Güldür Show. The research was carried out within a theoretical framework that addresses the phenomenon of old age through its physiological, sociological and psychological dimensions, which form the basis of dramaturgical character development. In the study, programme scripts were analysed using computational text mining methods via the R programming language and the NRC Emotion Lexicon. Quantitative data were combined with qualitative content analysis to form a mixed-methods design. The findings present data suggesting that old age is reduced to ‘cost’ in the sociological dimension, ‘management’ in the psychological dimension, and ‘object of care’ in the physiological dimension. Furthermore, gender-based double standards were identified in the representations. Consequently, the study shows that age discrimination can be normalised on a societal level by aestheticising the comedy narrative.
Keywords: Representations of the elderly, Ageism, Media studies, Television, Humor
Nergiz Gündel / Sumru Yıldırım
DOI: 10.29224/insanveinsan.1919620
Issue 42, Yaz 2026
Tam metin / Full text
(Turkish)
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