Portrait of the disabled in the media

✍ Scribed by Professor James M. Gardner; Michael S. Radel

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 441 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0090-4392
• DOI: 10.1002/1520-6629(197807)6:3<269::aid-jcop2290060310>3.0.co;2-s

✦ Synopsis

Disabled people, like everyone else, draw a part of their self-concept from the media, yet there IS scarce attention paid to the image of the disabled in the media. Over a three-week period, newspapers and prime time TV programs were examined to determine the image of the disabled person as well as the general theme of the programs in which the disabled person appeared. Of the total exposures (TV and newspapers), the major themes which emerged were the needs for special services (30%), successful adjustment (22%). problems of adjustment (21%), and the bizarre correlates of handica ping conditions (14%). In terms of ima e, the major ortrayal involved the disablecfas a dependent person (49%) rather tfan as an ingpendent (25%), abused (13%), or deviant (1 1%) person. Intramedia differences revealed that newspapers (as compared to TV) were more like1 to present the need for special services and to present problems of abuse of disabed people, and were less likely to present problems of adjustment. Between disability groups, only 22% of the total exposures dealt with mental handicaps, and none portrayed the person as fully capable, whereas 33% of the items dealing with the physically disabled presented an image of a capable person. *Data were collected by Peter Creed, Judy Fischer, Vivienne Maslen, Brian O'Hanlon, and Gail 'Data regarding advertisements were initially collected; however, it was found that the advertisements homogeneously portrayed the disabled as in need of special services, and as dependent. They were thus excluded from the analysis, though this fact, in itself, should be kept in mind when viewing the data.