ABSTRACT
Keywords: Hierarchy of disability in news images, cultural themes in news images,
media models of disability, disability rights narrative, camera angles and wheelchairs
Reinterpreting the old journalism adage, “If it bleeds, it leads” in terms of disability, this
chapter examines the news media’s values in terms of representing disability in the news,
arguing that people who have visually apparent disabilities are valued within the news
because of the unspoken visual and emotional cues they provide. Many have argued that,
in modern times, U.S. society has moved into a more visual, rather than text-based,
culture (Messaris, 1994), meaning that television images and print photographs have
taken preeminence over the printed word for media audiences. Therefore, this chapter
discusses the representation of people with disabilities in televised, photographic, and
print news; however, the bulk of the analysis rests on the visual images because of their
higher salience for media audiences. This chapter’s analysis is based on a study of 12
major newspapers’ and news magazines’ coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) from 1990 to 1993, which included 171 news photographs, 26 TV news
interviews with people with disabilities, and 525 print stories (Haller, 1995).
