Imagine being constantly portrayed in categories that involve being seen as either a victim or a hero. Imagine the unbearable thought of always being in the spotlight no matter what you do. Imagine being picked up and heaved down our society’s social hierarchy just because of our physical “can’s” and so called “cant’s”. These are the exact thoughts of disabled athletes all throughout our world due to media. Media can be seen everywhere and when people are up against such a powerful news platform such as social media outlooks, mis representations come into existence. In this case study to inabilities and portrayal, we will talk about how individuals with handicaps in the present sport’s world is upsetting America’s capacity, as a culture, to acknowledge and advance individuals with incapacities as other standard, American, people. The misrepresentation I will be taking on consists of how disabled athletes are misrepresented with this term called “supercrips” on media platforms such as television.
To begin off this blog, the misrepresentation of para-athletes is commonly portrayed in the media which plays a very severe role in the way disability is looked upon in society. The famous philosopher Stuart Hall raised vital ideas of why portrayal is so essential in his work “Representation”. He mentioned regarding the matter of portrayal through the perspective of the constructionist model, stating that “representation involves making meaning by forging links between three different orders of things…the world of things,people, events, experiences; the conceptual world…and the signs.”(Hall 8) Due to the constructionist approach of portrayal, we can evaluate on the fact that a considerable amount of the portrayals we’ve developed are not reflected upon what is genuine. For example, the representation of disabled athletes worldwide, does not truly reflect and dictate the real lives of these individuals. These deceptions are more-so responses as opposed to impressions of this present reality. Since the community of disabled athletes is so still new to the public eye, many have not been exposed to this group of individuals and especially not in the sporting world, making people think in more obvious and fixed mentalities, rather than thinking critically. As Carry would say, who is a worldwide famous communication theorist, the purpose of communication is to “(make) the phenomenon strange.”(Carry 24) Many different things that we don’t see everyday can become so normal that we no longer perceive them at all which is exactly what we as a society need to work on for addressing this issue.
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Now that we have laid down the foundation for this eye opening concern, let’s go in depth with some specific examples of this issue actually happening in the sports world. The Paralympic Games is a noteworthy worldwide multi sport occasion including competitors with a scope of various disabilities. One noteworthy event that has derived from this issue, consists with one of the biggest official broadcaster of the Paralympic Games, “Channel 4.” For promotional purposes, this major league broadcaster created a video titled, “we’re the superheros” were many various para athletes were showcased as some super hero’s. But what’s exactly distinguishing these men and women as heroes from other athletes? When it comes to the media however the answer to this question can go to ways. CBC news writer Kim Sauder is a writer on disability issues and has stated an eye opening approach which implies these athletes as “either superheroes or victims.”(Sauder 1) Because of what media has conveyed to us, our society has shifted into a place where media scope enables our lives to not have any impairment. When in reality we are quite regular consistent individuals living our lives.
This brings up the concept of the “supercrip”. This new descriptive label has been brought up from the media as critiquing and “promoting the notion that individuals need to fight against their impairments to secure unlikely successes.”(McPherson 1) This supercrip media model results in a “narrative (that) is normalized in media presentation,”(McPherson 2) which can undermine the places of individuals with an inability and can have the impact of making sporting abilities appear to be unattainable for people of the disabled community. And due to this inferior media model, it is than able to show society a perception of people with disabilities as either these victims or heroic figures and automatically place them towards “the bottom of the social hierarchy, failing to address the wider social,economic,cultural and environmental barriers that reinforce ableist infrastructures.”(McPherson 2) This is due to these images attaching the label of difference upon these individuals in a continued effort to brand these para athletes as superheroes rather than elite sports athletes just like their able-bodied peers. Because of social video productions such as Channel 4, disabilities are now exaggerated as these things that highlight and even dictate people’s lives when really they’re no different from you or the person sitting right next to you. When we see something on tv that has the word “disabled” our mind immediately thinks of pity or superheroism. This is the automated response that has been told to us because of media. In order to put a stop to this issue, it is the ideal opportunity for our society to put away these generalizations towards the disabled community and start acknowledging these elite athletes for their talents ands skills, without any sort of attached label of a disability.
Citations:
McPherson, Gayle. (2016). Elite athletes or superstars%3F Media representation of para-athletes at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Disability & Society., 31(5), 659-675.
Sauder, Kim. “The Problem with Inspirational Paralympic Videos.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 3 Aug. 2016,
Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage in association with the Open University, 1997. Print.
Carey, James W. Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society. Vol. 1, ser. 2, Routledge, 2009.
BISMCS 333 SUMMER 2017 