Week 3-Disability Flashcards
Define Disability according to the Equality Act 2010
■ Disabled if you have a ‘physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and
‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities’
- ‘substantial’ is more than minor or trivial, e.g., it takes much longer than it usually
would to complete a daily task like getting dressed - ‘long‐term’ means 12 months or more, e.g., a breathing condition that develops as a result of a lung infection
What can the wide range of impairments include in the Equality Act 2010?
■ sensory impairments, such as those affecting sight or hearing
■ impairments with fluctuating or recurring effects, such as rheumatoid arthritis, myalgic encephalitis (ME), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia, depression and epilepsy
■ progressive, such as motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy, and forms of
dementia
■ auto-immune conditions, such as systemic lupus erythematosis (SLE)
■ organ specific, including respiratory conditions, such as asthma, and cardiovascular diseases, including thrombosis, stroke and heart disease
■ developmental, such as autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), dyslexia and dyspraxia
■ learning disabilities
■ mental health conditions with symptoms such as anxiety, low mood, panic attacks,
phobias, or unshared perceptions; eating disorders; bipolar affective disorders;
obsessive compulsive disorders; personality disorders; post traumatic stress disorder,
and some self-harming behaviour
■ mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia
■ produced by injury to the body, including to the brain.
How can Disabilities be stereotyped?
■ Disability is often portrayed not as commonly and when it is in the media, it is in a negative or stereotyped manner
■ For many people, the media may be their primary source of information about
disability or a specific condition
■ Safran (2001) “While movies entertain, they simultaneously provide viewers with
information about disabilities, and, through the filmmaker’s lens, they project
representations of how individuals fit into a nation’s social and political landscape” (p.
223)
What did Holcomb and Latham-Mintus (2022) find about disability representations in Disney and Pixar Films?
■ Analysed 20 films (9 Disney, 11 Pixar) 2008-2018
■ Focused on visible disabilities or disabilities acknowledged in dialogue
■ All films included some portrayal of disability
■ In every film disabled characters portrayed as pitiable or a supercripple, disability indicated that a character was old or evil, or the object of ridicule
■ 12 films associated disability with evil or older age
■ 11 films depicted themes of pity or supercripple (i.e., they overcome their disability: implies they didn’t expect much of that character from the start OR those who don’t overcome aren’t trying enough)
■ 9 films presented disabled people as objects of ridicule
■ Only 3 represented disability as ordinary or positive (i.e., didn’t make the disability central to the character and inheritly bad)
■ 0 represented disability rights
What 6 main disability stereotypes did Nelson (2000) find?
■ (1) victim (weak, dependent, in need of charity (not always needed and could instead steer towards support and accessibility without being in need of someone), tragedy)
■ (2) hero (overcoming disability through willpower alone and determination) also ‘inspiration porn’ or supercrip
■ (3) a threat (violent, unpredictable, angry about disability-typically mental or physical health: Used as a short cut to detect the villain instantly to imply they are dangerous or a consequence of their bad behaviour)
■ (4) unable to adjust (refusing accommodations, ‘own worst enemy’: Implies disabled people need to shut up and take advice from a practitioner about whats best for them even if these accommodations worsen a patients ability)
■ (5) a burden (to individual carers or society: Almost uses this disabled person as a plot device to give the other character more trauma/difficulties)
■ (6) better off dead (often discussed with reference to euthanasia)
How do Charities impact the representation of disabilties?
■ Traditionally, charities have included images intended elicit sympathy and pity
■ These images can reinforce the notion that those with disabilities are dependent and in need of financial support
Kemenetsky et al. (2016):
-Looked at the relationship between the images we see and how willing we are to help these charities
■ Showed undergraduate students older (1960-1990) and more recent (1991-2010)
disabled charity images
■ Newer images led to more positive responses
■ People no more willing to help than when viewing the older images
How did the portrayal of Fraud and the Burden of Benefits in the newspapers affect the representation of disabilities? (Briant, Watson, and Philo, 2013)
■ Compared coverage of disability in newspapers in 2010/11 and 2004/05
■ 713 articles October 2004–January 2005, 1015 articles October 2010–January 2011
■ Newspaper coverage in 2010/11 was less sympathetic. An increase in articles that
focused on disability benefit and fraud and an increase in the use of negative language
to describe disabled people (only a small number actually commit fraud yet there are loads of disabled people who are wanting these benefits for valid reasons yet can’t get it)
■ An audience reception study (both disabled and non-disabled P’s) suggested the coverage is impacting on the way that
people think about disabled people (non-disabled overestimate fraudulent behaviour related to disabilities)
How do events such as the Olympics and Paralympics, fuel the Hero or Supercrip Narrative?
■ In recent years, the profile of the Paralympic games has increased with important opportunities to challenge existing disability-related stereotypes
■ BUT, a ‘hierarchy of disability’ e.g., athletes who use wheelchairs more likely to be featured in the media than athletes with cerebral palsy (Schell & Duncan, 1999).
■ Hero or Supercrip narrative. Individual is celebrated for overcoming disability
■ Silva and Howe (2012) critique the supercrip narrative e.g., reflects low societal expectations for disabled people where any achievements are perceived as surprising
■ Paralympic games often presented as entertainment rather than a sporting event (Rees et al. 2018) e.g., emphasis on transformation and tragedy narratives (Beacom et al. 2016)
Is there any progress with how disabilities are represented? (Devotta, Wilton, and Yiannakoulias, 2013)
■ Coded articles in three Canadian newspapers from a three-month period in 1998 and 2008
■ 362 articles were found in the two time periods
■ Significant increase in the proportion of ‘‘progressively’’ themed articles (e.g., disability awareness and inclusion)
■ But, significant differences between newspapers (and people tend to stick to a newspaper therefore if it was a harmful one then it would negatively impact internal representation beliefs).
■ Toronto Sun (tabloid) maintained a strong focus on ‘‘traditional’’ themes (e.g., charity)
What are the impact of Media Opportunities for disability representations? (Södergren and Vallström, 2022)
■ Studied twelve influencers with visible impairments
■ Disabled influencers drew on narratives based on empowerment, resistance, and
responsibility. Presented themselves as complex people not victims or superhuman
What are the impact of Media Opportunities for disability representations? (Sweet et al., 2020)
■ Review of the literature, 215 articles on social media used by disabled people and 29 selected for in‐depth thematic analysis.
■ Six major themes: community, cyberbullying, self‐esteem, self-determination, access to technology, and accessibility.
■ Community (29 articles). People coming together with shared experiences, needs, and ideas
What is Disability Drag?
■ Relatively few characters with disabilities are played by actors who themselves have
that the disability
■ “disability drag” (i.e., the use of actors without disabilities to play characters with
disabilities) (takes away opportunities for disabled actors and removes that authenticness of the experience and what it is actually like)
■ Argued depicting characters both before and after onset of a disability can remind
audiences we are all susceptible to disability
■ “Imagine if only 5% of female characters on television were played by women. Imagine if 95% of black characters were played by white actors. We as a society have accepted people’s right to self-representation, and yet when it comes to people with disabilities, we’re apparently fine with so‐called cripface or disability drag” (Woodburn & Ruderman, 2016)
■ Advertising is less likely to rely on non-disabled actors to represent disability
■ May reflect false advertising legislation which prevents media ‘faking disability’ or fear of offending customers
■ But, where disability is featured it often minimises signs of visible difference (i.e., hierarchy of disability)
What is a Positive and Balanced Representation of disabilities?
■ Disabled characters that are complex and fully developed – and represented by
disabled actors
What did Li et al. (2021) find about mental health?
■ Articles from nine UK national newspapers in 2008–11, 2013, 2016 and 2019
■ 2719 articles were included for analysis
-Found that articles in tabloids had 1.32 times more likely to have a negative impact on disabilities (check recording for this fact)
-With severe mental conditions, stigmatising covers were 1.72 times higher than neutral covers (check recording again)
What did Pieper et al. (2023) find about mental health representations in films?
■ Review of mental health portrayal
-40% of characters with a mental health condition died with more than half of them being violent and 7 died by suicide
-Deaths included: being shot, overdose, alcoholism, died in sleep, heart attack etc.,
-72% of film characters with a mental health condition in 2022 were perpetrators of violence (46% in 2016, 63.4% in 2019)
