(Re-)presenting the Paralympics: Affective Nationalism and the “Able-Disabled”

Abstract

The relationship between media, sport, nations and nationalism is well established, yet, there is an absence of these discussions at the intersection of communication, Paralympics and disability studies. This omission is particularly significant considering the rapid commodification of the Paralympic spectacle, exacerbated by the entry of Channel 4 (C4) as the UK Paralympic rights holders, that has seen the games become an important site of disability (re-)presentation. In this article, we focus on the construction of national, normative, disabled bodies in Paralympic representation drawn from an analysis of three integrated datasets from Channel 4's broadcasting of the Rio 2016 Paralympics: interviews with C4 production and editorial staff; quantitative content analysis, and qualitative moving image analysis. We highlight the strategic approach taken by C4 to focus on successful medal winning athletes; the implications this has on the sports and disability classifications given media coverage; and the role of affective high-value production practices. We also reveal the commercial tensions and editorial decisions that broadcasters face with respect to which disabilities / bodies are made hyper-visible-and thereby those which are marginalized-as national disability sport icons that inculcate preferred notions of disability and the (re)imagined nation. 'hyper-visibility' of disability (Pullen et al., 2018), our focus herein is on the media's role in the social construction of disability and the production of Paralympic media texts as those through which political/ national discourse can be traced (Whannel, 2013). Critically engaging with representations of disability and disabled Paralympic bodies raises important questions, especially when held relational to a celebrated and 'normative' national body politic, one derived and cultivated from enhanced forms of neoliberal embodiment (sculpted, healthy, fit, sexual, heteronormative, and attractive) (Turner, 1996). With death, age and disability often positioned as the antithesis to such a normative body politic, media depictions of disability have, for the most part, drawn on a limited number of stereotypes, including: helpless, passive victims; vulnerable and pitiable and childlike dependents; and 'supercrips' predicated on inspirational stories of determination and personal courage to overcome adversity (Barnes & Mercer, 2010). Yet, the hyper-visibility and celebration of disability in and through the Paralympics that intends to provide a global sporting spectacle for the empowerment of disabled people for a more equitable society (See, Howe, 2008) could challenge such dominant narratives. In this paper, our interests centre on the very particular and specific construction of national, normative, disabled bodies in, and through, Paralympic representations. Building upon extant media and disability scholarship, we draw on three integrated datasets (interviews with production and editorial staff, quantitative content analysis, and qualitative moving image analysis) t...

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A Critical Discourse Analysis of Military-Related Remembrance Rhetoric in UK Sport: Communicating Consent for British Militarism

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