An Analysis of Newspaper Texts with a View to Studying the "First" Old People’s Homes

Abstract

Newspaper texts published in the period between the end of World War II and the late 1950s in the Belgrade dailies Borba and Politika have been analyzed for the purpose of studying the process of how old age, as a social issue, has repeatedly "appeared" and "disappeared" from the public eye. These texts illustrate one of the fundamental tenets of constructionism that leads to reality perceived as, and provide insight into the reasons that this social problem, which dates back to the emergence of a burgeois civil society in 19th century Serbia, was perceived in the period studied as just constructed. In this way, it is possible to explain how before becomes after, and why newspapers refer to an old people’s home built no earlier than 1959 as the "first" home of its kind in Belgrade.

Keywords

• old age
• old people’s homes
• newspaper texts
• constructionism
• social problem