Exploring The Line Between Representation And Exploitation Of Disabilities In Entertainment Media

Abstract

Consistent with the sociocultural model, consumption of popular media influences a community's thoughts, opinions, feelings, and actions towards groups of people represented. Because of this it is important that historically marginalized groups of people are accurately represented in the entertainment media. However, this is often not the case, especially in regard to the disabled community. To showcase the lack of representation a content analysis of 100 popular media sources with disabled characters was conducted. These sources were then analyzed to see the types of representation in much of the popular media of today, i.e., if characters were played by an actor with a disability or if the disability was a main plot point of the story. Along with the content analysis, ten qualitative interviews with people within the disabled community were conducted to learn about their views of disability representation, exploitation, and existing examples in the media. These interviews asked questions about their view of representation, exploitation, and opinions on the existing examples in the media. This research found that not only is there a lack of representation in the media, but a lack of accurate representation, and this is viewed as problematic by participants in the current study. This research provides guidance on how the entertainment industry can improve the representation of the disabled community.