Enhance your understanding of how the media portrays disabilities and sexuality with these detailed notes, tailored for AQA A-level Sociology students.
Explore key sociological perspectives on the misrepresentation and stereotyping of disabled individuals, including themes like victimization, de...
● Sociologists argue that the media historically represents individuals with disabilities with certain
stereotypes such as they are objects of pity, unable to participate in normal life, in need of help.
● Shakespeare (1998) argues that disability is created by societies that don't take into account the
needs of those who do not meet society's ideas of what is normal.
● Whether someone is disabled or not is a social product - it is social attitudes which tun an
impairment into a disability, as society discriminates against those impairments.
● Those who control the media industry are predominantly white, middle class, abled bodied men, so
the media gaze which forms representations of disability is that of abled bodied men.
● The media gaze always presents disability as a problem for those individuals themselves who
have impairments rather than something created by society.
The symbolic annihilation of disability in the media:
- Disabled people are seriously underrepresented among those who work in the media industry and
in the whole range of media content and also portrayed in negative ways that they face symbolic
annihilation
- Cumberbatch et al found that over one third of participants with impairments in the programmes
they reviewed were seen using disability aids, wheelchairs , crutches
Neg representations of disability
- Philo et al og the GMG found that negative stereotypes were also applied to people with disabling
mental health conditions.
Stereotypes of disabilities:
● Barnes (1992) argues that mass media representations of disability have generally been
oppressive and negative. People with disabilities are rarely presented as people with their own
identities.
Barnes (1992) identified a number of recurring stereotypes of disabled people:
- Pitiable and pathetic - in need of charity
- As victims
- Sinister and evil - e.g villains in james bond movie have physical impairments
- Atmospheric - their physical traits creates an atmosphere or scene of unease, mystery
- Sexually abnormal - media often treats them as having no sense of sexuality or being sexually
degenerate
- Incapable of participating fully in community life
● Shakespeare (1998) described disability as a character trait, plot device to engage the audience
or interest them through sympathy
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