Wrong messages

Last month I talked about the NHS’s role in influencing disablist attitudes – attitudes which treat disabled people as second-class citizens, or not fully human. This time, let’s look at the media.

Outside our immediate families, politicians may have most power over our lives, but the media has collectively the most power to influence what we think and the attitudes we hold.

The issue for disabled people is how the media exercises this power in respect of attitudes to impairment, disability, ourselves and our rights.
The media seems to work in four ways which impact on society’s attitudes towards disability:

1 How the media reflects and reports attitudes that society already holds;

2 How it sensationalises and distorts disability issues to make news stories or programmes;

3 Whether disabled people have high-profile and influential roles in the media – for example, actors, broadcasters, journalists; and

4 How it tries to influence public opinion through advertising, comment and campaigning.

The first of these implies that actually all the media is doing is reflecting the disablist attitudes that society already holds, so the media might argue it is not to blame. However, the media is not obliged to hold up a mirror to society without comment.  Also, sometimes the media has a commercial interest in reflecting what society wants to hear – it may have a vested interest. But the result of portraying disablist attitudes through the powerful lens of media channels is that disablism is not just reflected but magnified and worsened.

The second point is where the media has most power – how it tells disability stories.  To make such stories appealing, there is a tendency negatively to overemphasise impairment and its practical and emotional impact, and positively to overemphasise ”struggling against adversity” and the importance of others in the disabled person’s life.  The media have disability firmly in the “tragic but brave” and “impairment is a burden” boxes. 

Disability is indeed an important story – it is a key aspect of society’s communal life – but if instead it was put in the context of disabled
people’s struggle against disablism, such stories would work to combat disablism rather than stoke it up.

The third point affects attitudes in two ways.  Firstly, if more disabled people have senior positions within media organisations, they can positively influence the portrayal of disability and the attitudes it engenders.  Secondly, if more disabled people have publicly high-profile and influential media roles than the currently low representation, this will have a direct positive impact on attitudes towards disabled people as leaders in society.

Finally, my fourth point.  The media clearly uses its power deliberately to influence public opinion.  But even in commercial advertising there are opportunities to get society thinking in new social terms while selling products, let alone in more considered public comment. 

Disabled people need powerful allies in the media willing to comment and campaign positively for disabled people’s rights and an end to disablism. 

We need high-profile mainstream media outlets – newspapers, radio or TV channels – prepared to pick up the mighty pen in the name of justice and freedom for disabled Britons.

• Andy Rickell is an executive director at Scope