The map of disability: exploring the media representation of disability and disabled people

Abstract

According to numerous scholars, the media propose a clichéd and biased view of disabled people, often stigmatized and underrepresented. The media present disability as an "objectively abnormal" condition, following a "personal tragedy" or "medicalization" model. The outcome is a "social map" of disability based on "negative/passive" representations of disabled people and empathic and emotional life stories. To investigate this claim, we built a corpus by select-ing articles with the keyword "disability" among those published by "Corriere della Sera" in 2019 (January 1 to December 31). The content analysis of the 624 articles highlighted 1) un-derrepresentation, 2) passive and generic representations (except in emotional life stories) and 3) a depiction of disabled people based mainly on the help they receive from society (particu-larly through institutions, associations, technology and artistic/sports activities).