ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the results of our analysis of the frequency with which people with disabilities appeared on television. It deals with the overall frequency pattern of disability on television, explores some comparisons between US and UK television programmes, considers channel differences and provides an account of how we assessed the proportion of disabled characters in the television population. The chapter deals with the relationship between the rate, severity and kinds of disabilities depicted in fictional programmes and those found in the UK population. The type of programme most likely to include people with disabilities was feature films, of which 41 per cent portrayed characters with disabilities. American programmes play an important role in British television schedules. The greatest channel differences were found in factual programmes, the percentage featuring disabled characters being comparable in the channels’ fiction output.
