Communication for Successful Aging : Empowering Individuals Across the Lifespan

The Biennial Jake Harwood Outstanding Book Award 2024

National Communication Association Communication and Ageing Division, Outstanding Book Award 2023

This essential volume explores the vital role of communication in the aging process and how this varies for different social groups and cultural communities. It reveals how communication can empower people in the process of aging, and that how we communicate about age is critically important to – and is at the heart of – aging successfully.

Giles et al. confront the uncertainty and negativity surrounding "aging" – a process with which we all have to cope – by expertly placing communication at the core of the process. They address the need to avoid negative language, discuss the lifespan as an evolving adventure, and introduce a new theory of successful aging – the communication ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA). They explore the research on key topics including: age stereotypes, age identities, and messages of ageism; the role of culture, gender, ethnicity, and being a member of marginalized groups; the ingredients of intergenerational communication; depiction of aging and youth in the media; and how and why talk about death and dying can be instrumental in promoting control over life’s demands.

Communication for Successful Aging is essential reading for graduate students of psychology, human development, gerontology, and communication, scholars in the social sciences, and all of us concerned with this complex academic and highly personal topic.