The article is based on a study of how social media and other types of online representations of nursing homes are described by staff. The study proceeds from a qualitative thematic analysis of 14 interviews with nursing-home representatives. The article addresses a key finding that was apparent in the interviews: the online representations’ form and content were adjusted to fit the demands of residents’ relatives. Given the peripheral role attributed to relatives in official Swedish eldercare policies, the motives for the online representations are systematically examined. Two motives are found to be central: marketing and assurance. Residents’ relatives, specified as adult children, were perceived pre-admission as customers in charge of the process of choice and placement; post-admission, relatives requested proof that social activities were provided for their parents. The article discusses how online representations strategically construct a version of ‘reality’ by adjusting to relatives’ unrealistic expectations, only showing residents as involved in social activities. Finally, the need to examine the actual role of relatives in Swedish eldercare is discussed.

This paper examines, through discourse analysis at a micro level, how age identities become interactionally constructed through talk. After a brief overview of the constructivist arguments, the focus is on a single-case interaction between an older client couple and three travel agency assistants. The various means by which age is made salient by the participants and the ensuing age identities that are created for and by the couple in particular are investigated. The images of the ‘elderly’ as portrayed in holiday brochures, providing one dimension of the context of this encounter and being significant in older travellers' self-identity construction, are also looked at. It is argued that discourse analysis has a useful contribution to make in social gerontology in that it can illuminate the interactive processes through which ageing and old age can be defined.