Media representation and the Paralympics: a step too far or not far enough?

Abstract

The Paralympics is globally the largest and most significant sporting event that takes place for athletes with a disability. The 2020 Tokyo Games was heralded as significant in its extensive media coverage that served to promote the disability athletic movement, breaking all broadcasting viewing records from the number of broadcasters, viewers, and a number of events provided live. In the past, however, media reporting of the Paralympic Games has not been without controversy. Stereotypical representations of disability, for example, have often been cited). These involve representations such as framing disability as something to be overcome; where athletes ‘participate’ rather than ‘compete’; and for those with adaptive technology, being portrayed as ‘cyborgs’, rather than as competitive athletes. This article has been driven by the curiosity to determine if media depictions of Paralympic athletes have improved over time. We wished to explore the current representations of the print and television coverage in Australia of the 2020 Tokyo games. Our research found that media coverage did, for the most part, provide coverage of events where Paralympians were represented as athletes first and their disability second. Despite this positive outcome, stereotypes prevailed in both print and television reporting. These included minimalising a person's disability, often to the point of making the disability invisible; focussing on overcoming tragedy; using inspirational language to position athletes as advocates for the disability; the use of patronising language; and the positioning of athletes as needing to be grateful. We conclude that whilst the media in Australia has made significant steps towards representing Paralympians as elite athletes, continued attention and primary focus needs to be given to the athlete’s first narrative.

European Public Service Media, Disability Sports and Cultural Citizenship in the Digital Age: An Analysis of Agenda Diversity in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games

“…In contrast to the longstanding invisibility and stereotyping of athletes with disabilities, recent Paralympics have offered outstanding examples of news outlets providing respectful media coverage that represents Paralympians as athletes first (Page et al 2022). Apart from Channel 4's abovementioned broadcasting strategy in Great Britain, the heritage of the Rio Paralympics is still present in Globoesporte.com, one of the most accessed sport information sites in Brazil; this website has a section exclusively dedicated to news on Paralympic sports (Menezes dos Santos et al 2022).…”

La imagen de las personas deportistas con discapacidad física en Instagram a través de la Neurocomunicación

“…Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 82 https://doi.org/10.4185/rlcs-2024-2122 con los de un deportista lesionado (Butler y Bissell, 2015) que participa en vez de competir (Page et al, 2022). Pese a ello, y aunque en todos los públicos está presente el riesgo de que se genere una insatisfacción corporal (Mañas-Viniegra et al, 2020), se ha identificado que la apariencia física de las personas con discapacidad influye en las reacciones de los demás, no habiéndose investigado más allá de la propia autopercepción (Shpigelman y HaGani, 2019) y menos aún las diferencias en la percepción cognitiva sobre personas con discapacidad que se muestran como deportistas.…”