Newspaper Coverage of People with Disabilities in Canada and Israel: An international comparison

Abstract

A BST RA CTIn this research study we compared how three Canadian and three Israeli newspapers wrote about people with disabilities over a 3-month period. The comparison included structural variables, such as the length of the articles, where they appeared, whether photographs were used, etc. W e also examined content variables, such as who the m ain character was, the details used to describe this individ ual or group, and what governmental agencies, service providers and problems were mentioned. Finally, we looked at whether the article was progressive, traditional or mixed in its perspective. O ur ® ndings showed a num ber of signi® cant differences between Canada and Israel. Equally noteworthy, however, were the considerable sim ilarities, such as frequent problems with ® nances and services, and m ost of the articles being traditional in focus. The paper concludes with an analysis of the newspaper business and the im plications of this for altering the im age of disabled people in the media. Literature ReviewSocial attitudes toward people with disabilitie s are am ong the key barrie rs obstructing their full participation in the societies in which they live , and their political equality as citizens with righ ts (7). Studies seeking to understand these attitudes show that they are in¯uenced by the culture to which one belongs, one' s religio n, class, age, gender and education, the amount of direct contact one has with disabled people, the context within which the disability occurred, and the type and severity of the disability involved ().`The m edia m ay not have the power to determ ine what people think, [but] they can and do determ ine what people think about' (N euendorf, 1990, p. 115). Therefore, the am ount and the nature of press coverage an issue receives will be related to the im portance placed on that issue by individuals in the society, regard less of any m easure of the issue' s objective im portance (Neuendorf, 1990). In addition, the media in¯uences attitudes through how it covers a give n issue (i.e. a story' s em phasis and colour) (N euendorf, 1990). For exam ple, disabled people have often been portrayed as dependent, abused or deviant (Byrd, 1989; G ardner & R adel, 19 78), and many are depicted as having no fam ilies and no worklife, reinforcing the im age of disabled people as non-productive (Zola, 1985).Portrayals of disabilities in the m edia have been criticised for some tim e for being inaccurate and demeaning, and for fostering and reinforcing negative stereotypes (Biklen, 198 7; Byrd & Ellio t, 1988 ;Yoshida et al., 1990;Panitch, 1995). The m edia presents disabled people in a variety of stereotypical ways, as weak, helpless and powerless, as victim s, geniuses, superheroes (Tait, 1992), as objects of pity, hum our and ridicule, and very often as dangerous (Bogdan et al., 1982; Byrd & Ellio t, 1988). The m edia does occasionally portray disabled people in a m ore positive ligh t, but what the general public thinks of as positive depictions m ay be som ewhat less so when view ed...

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