Representation of Disabled Community in Mainstream Media

Abstract

The research looked into the representation of disabled community in Malaysian mainstream media. The lack of awareness and common assumption of specialty towards the disabled community have caused a small amount of local disability researches that question the relationship between the disabled community and the media. The research aimed to find out the types of representation of disability, analyze mainstream content from various perspectives and factors of misrepresentations. Although many theories attempt to explain disability without standing in the shoes of disabled group, to fit it under media context, the research focused on disability culture as the core theory to explain the common disability representation. To specify the research scope, people with visual impairment was selected as the core representative of the disabled group as the group is believed to be a notable group in media research. To collect the findings, two methods were combined as triangulation, which are intensive interview and content analysis. Intensive interviews were conducted separately with three interviewees to include more variety of angles, including a journalist from local print media, visual impaired personnel, and representative from blind association whereas content analysis was completed through analyzing the news stories related to disabled people in three mainstream newspapers. The findings indicated the invalidity of disability culture as the misrepresentation of disabled community in Malaysia is not as severe as depicted by the scholars because the news coverage focusing on them is getting more positive. The application of charity approach is still common in news coverage to portray them as victim and disabled people are partially marginalized due to the misrepresentation in mainstream media content. Another significant finding is that disabled people are not defensive towards the terms used to refer them as long as media practitioners do not over amplify their disability.

URL: http://ijkcdt.net/xml/24237/24237.pdf