This study investigates the violence against the elderly from the cultural and social changes, promoted by the printed media, analyzed under the optics of the Theory of the Social Representations. By means of the software ALCESTE, twenty eight published news from the periodical Folha de São Paulo, Brazil, were analyzed and accessed by internet between 2001 and 2008. From the results emerged four thematic classes related to subordination of the elderly by governmental actions, legal norms and scientific rules, as well as domestic and institutional experiences. The highlights were the demographic indicators on population aging and the epidemiological data on violent deaths .These were the more prevalent elementary units of context in the content of the news.
violence; elderly; social representation; press; alceste
