Newspaper coverage about people with learning disabilities often focuses on attacks and abuse. While it is important to highlight this issue, stories of success and everyday lives are needed to prevent a perception of helplessness and dependency, says Shirley Durell
A growing body of research exists in the areas of disability and media. However, few studies have focused on newspaper coverage about learning disabilities or have involved these people in their enquiries (Wertheimer, 1987; Disability News Service, 2010; Haller, 2011).
With all of this in mind, I carried out a PhD study on modern-day representations of people with learning disabilities by national print newspapers. I wanted to find out what the UK national press was saying about people with learning disabilities and, most importantly, what people with learning disabilities thought about these news items.
The work involved a research advisory group and two focus groups of people with learning disabilities and their supporters, and an analysis of 546 learning disability stories (Durell, 2013).
In terms of the UK national press, I chose the three dailies with the highest circulation figures for each of the main types of newspaper for the years 2006–10: The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph (Quarmby, 2011). A search on the Lexis database with the terms “learning disability”, “learning difficulty” and “learning disabled” revealed 546 stories (Table 1). I was mostly interested in items about adults with learning disabilities but I also included some pieces that talked about children.
By analysing content, I examined different features of these stories to find out more about what they had been saying about people with learning disabilities. This included identifying the most prominent media stereotype (if any) of disabled people that had been portrayed overall within each story, such as the portrayal of a disabled person as sinister and evil (Barnes, 1992). The overall themes that were discussed across each storyline were also explored and grouped under general headings.
| Table 1. Number of news stories by year, per newspaper | ||||||
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | Total | |
| The Daily Mail | 54 | 43 | 38 | 46 | 28 | 209 |
| The Daily Telegraph | 24 | 37 | 24 | 24 | 37 | 146 |
| The Sun | 26 | 32 | 30 | 52 | 51 | 191 |
| Total | 104 | 112 | 92 | 122 | 116 | 546 |
Victim-related storylines
Interestingly, I discovered that, out of the 546 stories, 221 (40%) presented people with learning disabilities as an object of violence. These included items about them as victims of a wide range of criminal acts such as theft, assault and murder.
Others reported on incidents in which people with learning disabilities had been objects of violence within their own homes or within a care setting. This representation was also identified in some of the reporting of the story about Susan Boyle, a singer and winner of Britain’s Got Talent, who has learning difficulties.
Additionally, I found that the most recurring theme of this study’s items involved some form of victim-related storyline.
When this information was presented to focus group members, generally they were surprised to learn that so many stories talked about people with learning disabilities as objects of violence. One person at the first meeting had expected more stereotypical representations of people with learning disabilities as pitiable and pathetic. Another group member attributed the high proportion of object of violence items to the fact that “there has been a lot of disability hate crime stories, and also because of people’s attitudes towards people with learning disabilities”.
Indeed, the stereotypical representation of the disabled person as an object of violence is regularly featured by the media, as in real life many disabled people are often subject to victimisation.
On the one hand, these portrayals have been accredited as contributing to and underpinning the flawed impression of disabled people as completely helpless and dependent, along with the perpetuation of such victimisation (Barnes, 1992). On the other, the predominant coverage of the person with learning disabilities as an object of violence by a national newspaper can draw attention to the significance of these events, because disability hate crime can be ignored no longer (Quarmby, 2011).
However, while it is important “to talk about victims”, these narratives can create the impression “that disabled people are only ever victims” (Mencap Cymru, 2012).
So the UK’s national newsprint medium must report on the everyday lives of people with learning disabilities, because the absence of portrayals of a diversity of roles for disabled people across the media can reinforce the belief that they are incapable of looking after themselves and are therefore prone to violence. As a focus group member asserted:
“People to see me ‘as a person’ not my learning disability … but is that newsworthy? Think it is: what life is like for people with a learning disability … that should be in the papers.” n
Blame game: the effect of negative reporting
Press coverage of disability in the UK has become increasingly politicised, with an increase in the use of derogatory language to describe disabled people.
These changes have played a role in reinforcing the idea of disabled incapacity benefit claimants as undeserving.
Disabled people have stressed the impact of this reporting on their lives (Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research and Glasgow Media Unit, 2011).
The connection between “disablist imagery, the media and discrimination” (Barnes, 1992) has been highlighted by disabled people and their organisations since at least the 1960s.
Modern media representations of people with disabilities have been criticised as “frequently … limited to the sentimental, pathological and sensational, or … disabled individuals are simply not represented at all” (Anderson, 2011).
However, people with learning impairments and their supporters have only just started to be concerned about these matters.
References
Anderson J (2011) Public bodies: disability on display. In: Tefler B, Shepley E, Reeves C, eds. Re-framing Disability: Portraits from the Royal College of Physicians. London: Royal College of Physicians: 15-34
Barnes C (1992) Disabling Imagery and the Media: an Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People. Halifax: the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People and Ryburn Publishing: 2. http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/Barnes-disabling-imagery.pdf
Disability News Service (2010) Disabled Protesters March on Ofcom over Offensive “Hate” Language. www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-protesters-march-on-ofcom-over-offensive-hate-language
Durell S (2013) Advancing Inclusive Research Practices and Media Discourses: Representations of Learning Disabled Adults by the Contemporary, Print Version of English National Newspapers. Unpublished PhD thesis. Coventry: Coventry University
Haller B (2011) Media & Disability Bibliography Project (1930 to Present). http://
media-disability-bibliography.blogspot.co.uk
Mencap Cymru (2012) Does He Take Sugar? Disability media seminar held in Pierhead, Cardiff Bay
Quarmby K (2011) Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People. London: Portobello Books
Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research and Glasgow Media Unit (2011) Bad News for Disabled People: How the Newspapers are Reporting Disability. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_214917_en.pdf
Wertheimer A (1987) According to the Papers: Press Reporting on People with Learning Difficulties. London: Campaign for the Mentally Handicapped
