“The Place of News Media Analysis with Disability Studies,” (with Andrew Laing, Cormex Research, Toronto, Mihaela Dinca, DRPI Canada, Marcia Rioux, Jessica Vostermans, & Paula Hearn, all of York University, Canada) in The Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, Spring 2012. (original) (raw)

The Place of News Media Analysis within Canadian Disability Studies

Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 2012

This paper advocates for increased news media analysis within the disability studies field. Using a media research project about Canadian news media coverage of disability, this paper explores the shifting nature of recent disability coverage within Canadian newspapers between 2009 and 2010. As a group of researchers in Canada and the USA, who have undertaken numerous content analyses of news media representations of disability, we argue that a paradigm shift is taking place in which some traditional news media representations of people with disabilities are now being framed through a disability rights lens. This paper's analysis is based on data collected by the Toronto-based Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI). The project investigates Canadian news coverage of disability issues through Joseph Gusfield's theory of societal "ownership" of a public problem, which in this case means discrimination against and societal barriers for people with disabilities become identified problems that need to be solved within Canadian society.

Disability in News Media: Reconstructing False Representations

There were many actions throughout the years to improve lives of people with disabilities throughout legislations, charities work and disability rights movement, yet the advance of this phenomenon seems to be minor if social inclusion part is taken into consideration. The way disability and people affected by it are viewed in contemporary society stems from the medical model of disablement even though it is widely acknowledged that nowadays causal relation between individual and impairment is caused by social structures and the idea of ‘normality’. (2009: 44) Overall aims of this study are to demonstrate a continuous impact of news media in our understandings of disability phenomenon and implications of a lack of social inclusion as a consequence. This research study concentrates on noting the importance of language used when reporting on disability and aims to analyse the impact of ‘positive’ representations in news media and its effect on people with disabilities. The primary purpose of this study, however, is to note the distinction, or a lack of it, of mental and physical disabilities in news media when reporting on this topic and the impact on shaping stereotypes, which then, creates various implications towards a shift of social inclusion. Research methods adopted to tackle these questions include qualitative and quantitative research. While qualitative research will concentrate on an in-depth opinion of people with disabilities, quantitative research will help to measure understandings of general public and people with disabilities through questionnaires.

Images of Disability in News Media: Implications for Future Research

Even in the 1990s, little research has focused on how local media can more often and more accurately cover the disability community and disability issues. Some positive news coverage arose in the late 1980s because of the disability community's growing status as a minority group striving for equal civil rights. Other positive coverage reflected the consumer model, in which equity in society for people with disabilities is seen as good economic sense. A new negative image, however, includes the business model, which depicts economic equity for people with disabilities as costly to the American business community. Another issue is whether people with disabilities are given a "voice" in the news media--are they speaking for themselves? Mass media researchers should be looking for valid sources in the news; they should continue to assess who is speaking for the disability community in the news media. Communication research should continue to assess why and how news media prop up "ableist" views within society. Research must also assess journalists' attitudes about disability. The news media have begun to successfully change some of their language about disability--they are now likely to use "disabled" rather than "handicapped," or person with AIDS rather than AIDS victim. The media's powerful place in the social construction of people with disabilities may become a positive, rather than negative, force, and the future research of communication scholars must be focused on assessing this potential change. (Contains 12 notes.) (NKA)

Critically assess the role played by the media in constituting disability.

Media is a complex medium of communicating information and ideologies: its use entirely depends on entanglement of social values, political and economic interests. The social model in disability studies postulates that disability is not an individual problem, but a problem created through social practices of exclusion (Oliver 1987). As a main provider of information and an authority elucidating and shaping societal discourse, media and the representation of disability in it should be examined closely. I will first discus media’s power to define normality through imagery. Second, Barnes’ formulations of stereotypes in disabled people’s media representation will be elaborated through works by Devlieger, Darke and Cheu. Third, I will briefly outline the ways in which Web 2.0 and its interactive potential may be modifying the representation of disability in new media. Last, I will reflect historical transitions of media depictions of disability.

Disability in the Media: Examining Stigma and Identity

2018

dialogue between Mladenov's theoretical tenants and local structural and institutional histories, coupled with empirical interrogation of disability within the CEE region, also makes this book an exemplary example for supervisors and doctoral candidates. It can provide a framework of how to weave the conceptual and the empirical, in a critically coherent path, across each chapter to final conclusion, particularly during those moments of feeling overwhelmed by complex empirical sources. The core concern for some readers may be the absence of personal narratives of disabled peoples within the CEE. Given the concise empirical chapter structurepolicies during state socialism against the marked distinction of the neoliberal erasome would suggest that the experiences of disabled people, specifically those who have experienced the transition across the two periods, would add a layer of depth to the overall analysis. This is clearly warranted. Yet I would suggest that this would be a different book. Mladenov's textual focus of disability policies at the structural and institutional level opens a window to examining and understanding the convergence and divergence of such policies, and simultaneously elucidating structural and institutional continuities, disruptions and generative effects that, despite public imaginings, often remain embedded in their historicity. It is a highly effective book and the work clearly achieves its ambitions. I have no hesitation in recommending Disability and Postsocialism. The book reads well. It is highly informative. It provides a strong synthesis of the changes to the CEE landscape within the realm of disability policy and politics. This is an excellent example for doctoral students of what is required to undertake a well-argued critical policy analysis, moments of changes and their impacts, through rich conceptual and empirical engagement.

The Politics of Representing Disability

Asia Pacific Media Educator, 2015

Twenty-five years on from the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), media representation of people with disability has become even more significant. More recently, the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia has placed people with disability, and the issues they face, at the forefront of political discourse. This study looks at the media coverage of the ADA and the NDIS as significant social and political landmarks in their respective countries. Using content analysis, this article explores how media representations of people with disability are substantial factors within social reform, societal inclusion and equal rights. Because of numerous barriers to participation in many countries, people with disability may only be known to the larger society through media representations. Disability rights-focused news coverage is important to a society’s awareness of disability issues, so this research contributes to a better unde...

The Misrepresentation of the Disability Media Narrative

2020

The imagery and information presented in our media is a significant part of our everyday life. My article will explore how misrepresented disability narratives in media reinforce negative stereotypes and labeling in society against those with disabilities. The media's narrative shares information with the public, where people with disabilities (PWD) are depicted as broken and in need of a cure to be "normal." Also, PWD is excluded from the portrayal of the characters in the disability narrative. People who write most films and literature have never experienced having a disability. Their information comes from secondary sources and may include stereotypes. These narratives silence the voices of the disability community and cause both misrepresentation and under-representation. PWD represent the silent majority in the U.S. but have the lowest representation in the media of all minority classes. Therefore, false narratives and under-representation create a never-ending cy...

The Marginalisation of Disability in Media Studies

Crip Life Magazine , 2024

In light of recent calls suggesting a move towards a new field of study called Disability Media Studies, this piece of research investigated the extent to which, historically, media studies academics and researchers have either overlooked or have profoundly side-lined the issue of disability in their research, publications and teaching. The small-scale piece of research was based on a content analysis of ten academic publications (recommended introductory student textbooks and readers) in the field of media studies published over a period of twenty three years (1994 - 2017). The results of the research indicated that the inclusion of disability as a critical theme or detailed topic worthy of scholarly analysis and debate rarely featured in the subject’s academic textbooks that were used in the sample frame for the content analysis and that, in turn, such an oversight will inevitably have had an impact on media studies programme and course development and content, teaching, learning and research at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In concluding, it is argued that whilst the calls for Disability Media Studies is long overdue much more work is required especially within media studies if Disability Media Studies is to become established as a new academic field in its own right and if media studies is going to make a substantial contribution to that field.