Page 24 - Community Living Issue 31-3

being seen: the media
Endless victims of violence?

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

growing body of research exists in Table 1. Number of news stories by year, per newspaper
the areas of disability and media.
a however, few studies have 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total
focused on newspaper coverage about The Daily Mail 54 43 38 46 28 209
learning disabilities or have involved
these people in their enquiries The Daily Telegraph 24 37 24 24 37 146
(Wertheimer, 1987; disability News The Sun 26 32 30 52 51 191
Service, 2010; Haller, 2011). Total 104 112 92 122 116 546
With all of this in mind, I carried out a
PhD study on modern-day representations
of people with learning disabilities by content, I examined different features of
national print newspapers. I wanted to these stories to find out more about what “ While it is important
find out what the UK national press was they had been saying about people with
saying about people with learning learning disabilities. This included to talk about attacks,
disabilities and, most importantly, what identifying the most prominent media these narratives can
people with learning disabilities thought stereotype (if any) of disabled people that create the impression
about these news items. had been portrayed overall within each
The work involved a research advisory story, such as the portrayal of a disabled that disabled people are
group and two focus groups of people person as sinister and evil (Barnes, 1992). only ever victims
with learning disabilities and their The overall themes that were discussed Talent, who has learning difficulties. ”
supporters, and an analysis of 546 across each storyline were also explored
learning disability stories (Durell, 2013). and grouped under general headings. Boyle, a singer and winner of Britain’s Got
In terms of the UK national press, I
chose the three dailies with the highest Victim-related storylines Additionally, I found that the most
circulation figures for each of the main Interestingly, I discovered that, out of the recurring theme of this study’s items
types of newspaper for the years 546 stories, 221 (40%) presented people involved some form of victim-related
2006–10: The Sun, the Daily Mail and the with learning disabilities as an object of storyline.
Daily Telegraph (Quarmby, 2011). A violence. These included items about When this information was presented
search on the Lexis database with the them as victims of a wide range of criminal to focus group members, generally they
terms “learning disability”, “learning acts such as theft, assault and murder. were surprised to learn that so many
difficulty” and “learning disabled” Others reported on incidents in which stories talked about people with learning
revealed 546 stories (Table 1). I was people with learning disabilities had been disabilities as objects of violence. One
mostly interested in items about adults objects of violence within their own person at the first meeting had expected
with learning homes or within a more stereotypical representations of
disabilities but care setting. This people with learning disabilities as
I also included representation was pitiable and pathetic. Another group
some pieces also identified in member attributed the high proportion of
that talked some of the object of violence items to the fact that
about reporting of the “there has been a lot of disability hate
children. story about Susan crime stories, and also because of
By analysing 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
40% subject to victimisation.
of stories represented people with On the one hand, these
learning disabilities ‘as an object portrayals have been accredited
of violence’ as contributing to and
underpinning the flawed
24 Vol 31 No 3 | Spring 2018 community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk