Media and Disability 2004 Abstracts
Media and Disability Interest Group
Madness in Magazines: The stigmatization of a psychiatric disability in American news weeklies • Carol Fletcher, Hofstra University • The National Council on Disability has blamed the dismal state of the country’s mental health system on society’s failure to see “recovery as achievable and desirable for every person with mental illness.” The current study questions the role the media in fostering a view of the mentally ill as incapable or unworthy of treatment. Specifically, it examines every article about bipolar disorder over the past 15 years in Time, Newsweek, and US. News & World Report. Coverage of bipolar disorder has improved, and newsmagazines are less likely than newspapers to link the disorder with violence. However, the tendency of newsmagazines to blur distinctions between mental illnesses creates a subtler form of stigmatization, invalidating the suffering of individuals with serious psychiatric disabilities.
Representations of Mental Illness in Newspaper Articles on Violent Crime • Laurel A. Alexander, University of Texas at Austin • To investigate newspapers’ depictions of mental illness, a content analysis of 10 U.S. newspapers was conducted. While few violent crime articles focused on mental illness, a significant proportion of mental illness-related articles focused on violent crime. Violent crime was a more frequent focus than positive topics like treatment or policy. Agenda setting suggests that the frequency of violence in mental illness-related articles would lead people to view violence as a salient attribute of mental illness.
The role of disability in the films of Charles Chaplin • Jeffrey Alan John, Wright State University • In his long motion picture career Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) was one of the most famous names in world cinema. Not so generally known, however, is the significant role that disability played in his films. With Chaplin’s biography and modern frameworks for study of disability as background, this paper analyzes Chaplin’s use and apparent attitude toward disability, and suggests reasons why he chose to utilize disability in those ways in his films.
Visible images of disabled students: an analysis of UK university publicity materials. • Sue Ralph and Kathy Boxall, University of Manchester • This paper examines how UK universities are dealing with disability in their publicity materials to future students. Basic public relations practices explain that an organization should know its audiences and focus its messages accordingly. Do university admissions officers understand that a significant number of their audience might be disabled and will need information about the specific disability services available? This study examines what universities are, and are not, including in their general promotional materials about disability related topics as well as what campus disability services are providing.
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