Disability in the media
"[Media platforms] have been cited as a key site for the reinforcement of negative images and ideas in regard to people with disabilities.
[4][5] Negative day-to-day reporting may occur chiefly by depicting a given person or people with a disability as a burden or drain on society.
[8] The term "inspiration porn" was coined in 2012 by disability rights activist Stella Young in an editorial in Australian Broadcasting Corporation's webzine Ramp Up.
[10][11] Researchers note that information is prioritized for people with disabilities, with communication as a hard distinct second and entertainment is framed as a luxury[12] Stereotypical depictions of disability that originate in the arts, film, literature, television, and other mass media fiction works, are frequently normalized through repetition to the general audience.
A backlash of intolerance towards disability followed during the mid-20th century, with some researchers speculating that this may have been related to society's reaction against any identifiable "difference" as a result of Cold War tensions.
[25] Broadcast media has in recent years begun to recognize the large audience of people with disabilities that it reaches.
News Director Ed Turner contacted the Washington bureau of CNN to have the signing of the ADA by President Bush broadcast live.
The next day, the signing of the ADA was covered as the top headline in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and every other major U.S. newspaper.
Clare Morrow, the organization's Network Manager, states that "Disability is now at the heart of the diversity agenda for all of the UK's main television companies, thanks to their collective work".
[30] The BBC Website includes Ouch!, a disability news and discussion blog and internet talk show program.
Educational silent films showing hospital patients with various disabling conditions were shown to medical and nursing students.
Nazi propagandists exploited this fear and prejudice to push the public to accept their euthanasia policies, including forcible sterilization, by screening films showing people with intellectual and physical disabilities living in squalid conditions.
I suspect that someone somewhere has set up an agency called Rent-a-Freak, specifically to supply the most bizarre, eccentric disabled people they can find to budding documentary makers.
[36] American documentary photographers Tom Olin and Harvey Finkle, known for documenting the disability rights movement since the 1980s, have exhibited at many venues including the National Constitution Center Museum.
Media coverage that is "negative", "unrealistic", or displays a preference for the "pitiful" and "sensationalistic" over the "everyday and human side of disability"[38] are identified at the root of the dissatisfaction.
[42] Online forums and chat rooms therefore work as a connector for example people with impaired hearing are able to connect with those who many not know how American Sign Language.
Social media has also been used as an educational tool to teach others about the disabled community, how to better accommodate and find treatment or aid.
