ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the dominance of content analysis within disability studies to focus particularly on the concept of stigma and its influence on three key sites of disability media analysis – the employment of disabled people in media-based industries in relation to inaccessible work environments, the stereotypical framing of representation on television and, drawing on cultural approaches to disability, narrative and media, how society affects these representations. The chapter then moves to consider contemporary approaches to monitoring disability representation on television and the resurgence of content analysis via the US-based GLAAD and Ruderman Family Foundation and Screen Australia in Australia. Online discussion is briefly offered as a fourth area of analysis to the study of television’s textuality, particularly how this form of television’s reception and representation has been considered with disability studies. The chapter then revisits social model stereotypes in the context of the UNCRPD to illustrate their continuing relevance but equally the need to analyse media texts in depth beyond the level of stereotypes. Reflecting on television as a progressive medium, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of considering the full circuit of culture – representation, production, consumption, identity and regulation.
