CONSUMING IMAGE READING NOTES, writing homework help

Review and reflect on the readings and film issues. Consider these questions and post your responses in the discussion forum.

The films include creative expressions of artists working with constrained conditions of ability. Consider the truth and humanity expressed in the artists’ work.
Does Zhang and Haller’s study of disabled audience response to media characters with disability teach us anything important about our own media literacy?
Consider Shelly Berry’s short films. What are the values of artistic expression from and for people with disability as well as able body people?

Article 1

Consuming Image Reading Notes

Read Consuming Image, available in eReserves.

The authors conducted study of audience effects for people with disability from media that represents people with disability and found “Perceived positive media representation of people with disabilities led to affirmation of their disability identity even when the media messages were perceived as unrealistic, whereas negative media representation led to denial of their disability identity.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 50 million Americans have a disability, and about two-thirds of these individuals have a severe disability (U.S. Department of Labor, 2012). Today, people with disabilities still face many architectural, occupational, educational, and communication barriers in the United States.” (319)

The 2011 US labor force was 17.8% people with disabilities, but their unemployment rate was 15% compared to 8.7% for able body people. (319)

“In addition to evaluating media representation of disability issues and the disability community, the study also investigates how media exposure and the way people with disabilities process media messages impact their disability identities.” (320)

The literature review examines scholarship on these topics.

Media representations of people with disabilities
Social cognitive theory and its relevance
Perceived valence
Perceived realism of representations. (323)

Zhang and Haller propose four hypotheses.

H1: The more attention people with disabilities pay to mass media for information about disability issues, the more likely they think media frame people with disabilities as special or superhuman (the supercrip model).
H2: The more attention people with disabilities pay to mass media for information about disability issues, the more likely they think media frame disability as illness (the medical model).
H3: The more attention people with disabilities pay to mass media for information about disability issues, the more likely they would think media frame people with disabilities as disadvantaged and in need of social or economic support (the social pathology model).
H4: The self-identity of people with disabilities will depend on (a) the valence of portrayals of people with disabilities in the media to which they have been exposed and (b) the extent to which they consider these portrayals to be believable and realistic. (324)

Discussion of Results

Consistent with the results from previous content analysis studies (Clogston, 1990, Haller 1995), people with disabilities believed that mass media, in general, frame people with disabilities as supercrips, disadvantaged, or ill victims. Among these three dominant media representations, most of them are stigmatizing, except the supercrip model. These negative media representations reinforce the necessity for disability activists to openly discuss the disabling environment created by mass media and engage in an effort to promote changes in the social discourse about disability portrayals because media have the power to shape what public knows about disability. (329)

Zhang and Haller say their “study demonstrates that portraying people with disabilities as supercrips gives positive feedback to people with disabilities and affects their self-identity positively. Specifically, people with disabilities are more likely to develop positive and confident self-identity when exposed to media stories about the accomplishments of individuals with disabilities. This finding is consistent with SCT that perceived reward related to the observed behaviors can increase self-esteem” (Bandura, 2001).

Being aware of the fact that ingroup members have accomplished great achievements as implied by the supercrip model, people with disabilities can relate to the media messages and take comfort and feel hope from the fact that supercrips succeed in spite of a disability and, therefore, maintain a sanguine self-identity. It is interesting to note that such positive effects still take place even when people with disabilities perceive supercrip portrayals as unrealistic. (330)

When mass media frame people with disabilities simply as sickly and helpless victims, people with disabilities are primed with stigmatized aspects of being disabled, and feel that a disabled person’s life is inferior to, and less precious than, an able-bodied person’s life and hence hold low self-esteem about their self-identity. These findings suggest that the valence of media portrayals of people with disabilities can impact the identity of disability community. Positive coverage, such as the supercrip stones of achievement, helps people with disabilities take a balanced approach toward their identity, whereas negative coverage makes them not able to envision themselves properly. This indicates that mass media indeed can influence who we are and what we do. These findings are important for news media professionals to understand that how they report a specific group of people has such profound impacts on that group. (330)

The article closes with a quote from Michael Berube (1997) of PSU, who states,

In the broadest possible sense, it affects our understanding of what it means to be human; in more practical terms, it affects public policy, the allocation of social resources, and the meaning of civil rights. Every representation of disability has the potential to shape the way disability is understood in the general culture, and some of those representations can in fact do extraordinarily powerful, or harmful, cultural and political work.

Reference

Zhang, L., & Haller, B. (2013). Consuming image: How mass media impact the identity of people with disabilities. Communication Quarterly, 61(3), 319–334.

Article 2

Supercrips Versus The Pitiful Handicapped Reading Notes

Read Supercrips Versus the Pitiful Handicapped, available in eReserves.

This is a study of thirty Israeli describing their most memorable mediated images of disability. Two stereotypes are identified and discussed, the supercrip and the pitiful disabled. Examines how “individuals construct their identities within the social matrix are relevant to their patterns of sense making of symbolic reality.”

Reference

Kama, A. (2004) Supercrips versus the pitiful handicapped: Reception of disabling images by disabled audience members.The European Journal of Communication Research Communications, 29, 447-466.

Video 1