Media and Disability 1999 Abstracts
Media and Disability Interest Group
Disability Visibility: Cartoon Depictions Of Bob Dole • Gene Burd, Texas • This analysis of 65 editorial cartoons by 31 artists examined stereotypes of age and disability in images of Bob Dole. It found 46 were negative and 19 positive in a sample from newspaper reprints and originals in Newsweek, Time, U.S. News, National Review, Nation, and Editorials on File during the 1995-96 presidential campaign. Themes of death, violence and senility dominated images of Dole. Little connection was made between his disability and age and his political position or abilities.
Creating a Virtual Television Culture: Using Actors and Models to Reflect Desired Perceptions in Primetime Television Advertising • Dennis Ganahl, Southern Illinois University • These research results reflect an uncaring and non-inclusive advertising community. They dramatically illustrate the lack of inclusion of visually-detected physically impaired models in current advertising. The study continues a longitudinal analysis of “if and how” the visually-detected physically impaired persons are portrayed in network primetime advertising. This is the largest sampling of network primetime television advertising ever undertaken for this type of study.
Wrestling with Stereotypes: Images of the Mentally Ill in the WWF • Marie Hardin, Florida Southern College and Brent Hardin, Florida State University • This study examines the stereotypes and symbols used in reference to individuals with mental illness or mental disabilities in professional wrestling. After using qualitative methods to analyze more than 30 hours of 1998-99 World Wrestling Federation pay-per-view specials, researchers concluded that stereotypes used to characterize the mentally/ill disabled, while not vastly different from those already seen in prime time, exaggerate negative images of these groups.
Investigating Media Influence on Attitudes toward People with Disabilities and Euthanasia • Kimberly A. Lauffer and Sarah Bembry, Florida • The issues of euthanasia, physician-assisted death, and physician-assisted suicide have become hot topics for news and entertainment shows, spawning hours of programming since a videotape depicting Jack Kevorkian injecting a lethal dose of drugs into the arm of Thomas Youk, a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease, aired on 60 Minutes during the November 1998 sweeps. This experiment used an information-integration approach to examine whether such programming affects attitudes toward people with disabilities.
The Media’s Role In Building The Disability Community • Jack Nelson, Brigham Young University • It is obvious that technology is rapidly changing the world around us. Nowhere is that change more evident than in the changes occurring for those with physical and mental limitations-their portrayal in the media, their use of the media to achieve group aims, and their use of the new on-line media to communicate with others who have limitations and with the non-disabled world as well. In a very real way the growing sense of community among those with disabilities has been linked to the media.
Print Advertising Images of the Disabled: Exploring the Impact on Nondisabled Consumer Attitudes • Zenaida Sarabia Panol and Michael McBride, Southwest Texas State University • This research evaluated the impact of advertisements featuring physically-disabled persons on perceptions, feelings, and behavior of nondisabled audiences. No significant differences were found between responses toward disability and nondisability ads, pointing to possible mainstreaming effects. However, gender and status of disabled persons in advertisements appeared to influence negative assessments of advertising portraying physically-disabled females with nondisabled males. Frequency of exposure to ads portraying disabled persons also seems to determine the direction of attitudinal responses.
Kevorkian Convicted In 60 Minutes A Semiotic Analysis Of Editorial Cartoons • Ann Preston, Quincy University • This research asked what signs depict Kevorkian and related characters in recent cartoons, what those signs signify, and how proximity affects depictions. Icons include exaggerated nose, ears and glasses in caricatures of Kevorkian. Indices include IV bags and hypodermics. Symbols consist of words. Depictions of Kevorkian and of “60 Minutes” are overwhelmingly deflating. Only two cartoons extend the agenda beyond the “60 Minutes” broadcast or the Kevorkian trial to include disability. Detroit is over represented among trial cartoon.
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