Visualization of disability in news photographs: an analytical framework

Abstract

This article proposes a framework for analyzing visual discourses of disability in press photographs: the Visual Discourses of Disability (ViDD) framework. The development of this framework is based on an analysis of 670 news photographs of disability published in a Malaysian English-language mainstream newspaper. Within the ViDD, the authors propose the notion of perspectivization of disability: how elements in a photo are configured to frame the perspective of disability. These configurations can be placed on a cline, from perspectivizing to personizing. In addition, the cumulative attitudinal meanings in a news image can be placed on another cline, from enabling to disabling. The ViDD framework combines both clines to understand and explain how news photographs construe disability. This framework can serve as a tool for making informed choices in selecting and publishing images of people with a disability, and of disability.

Marketing of educational programs – a study of Swedish universities through presented images

“…Since it is hard to grasp all aspects of an image and yet maintain analytical coherence, some aspects or modalities needed to be focused on. Images have two interpretable dimensions or layers of meaning: what or who is being depicted and what ideas and values are expressed through what is represented (Ang & Knox, 2020). For this study we decided to direct the analysis toward the first layer of meaning, and therefore the focus was on representation based on who was shown in the image.…”

“…The results can be described in terms of which person is represented and what is communicated. Linked to the Ang and Knox (2020) interpretable dimension of what or who is depicted, we can see that unfortunately there seems to be a lot of acceptance for what we take for granted in our daily lives. A lack of norm-breaking images is not perceived as a problem.…”

“…People with disabilities are another group also rarely represented in images, but when they are, and in such cases, often to show this, that is to represent disabled persons it is referred to as perspectivizing, rather than personizing, i.e. highlighting the person (Ang & Knox, 2020), and this is often not problematized either.…”

“…Images that are more inclusive and show a greater variety of motif are needed. However, it is important that inclusion does not become a way to exhibit a diversity that does not exist in the true sense, a diversity where people with functional variation (Ang & Knox, 2020) or people of other ethnicities appear in pictures just to show that diversity exists (Ahmed, 2012). In these cases, diversity can, according to Ahmed, be a way of hiding real conditions where such things as institutional racism occur.…”

Advocating for a dementia-inclusive visual communication

“…Subsequently, we outline the empowering, advocating, handicapping and othering dementia images as the findings are potentially useful for organizations in considering the right semiotic choices and visual elements before any image is chosen or published. Essentially, the research serves as an original work which not only criticizes and cautions the "how-not-to's" but also proposes ways of illustrating dementia-inclusive visual depictions with examples from the Malaysian context, employing a recent Visual Discourses of Disability (ViDD) analytical framework (Ang & Knox, 2020).…”