Re-presenting the Paralympics: (contested) philosophies, production practices and the hypervisibility of disability

Abstract

Studies that have engaged parasport broadcasting, particularly through a narrative lens, have almost exclusively relied on textual and/or content analysis of the Paralympic Games as the source of cultural critique. We know far less about the decisions taken inside Paralympic broadcasters that have led to such representations. In this study – based on interviews with senior production and promotion staff at the United Kingdom’s Paralympic broadcaster, Channel 4 – we provide the first detailed examination of mediated parasport from this vantage point. We explore the use of promotional devices such as athletes’ backstories – the ‘Hollywood treatment’ – to both hook audiences and serve as a vehicle for achieving its social enterprise mandate to change public attitudes towards disability. In so doing, we reveal myriad tensions that coalesce around representing the Paralympics, with respect to the efforts made to balance the competing goals of key stakeholders and a stated desire to make the Paralympics both a commercial and socially progressive success.

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

“…As we argue in our previous work (see Pullen et al, 2018), C4's remit as a public service broadcaster was central to pursuing such an approach. C4 operates under a statutory remit as a sustainable social enterprise with a mandate that includes stimulating debate and education, being innovative and distinctive, reflecting cultural diversity, and inspiring social change through innovative content that challenges the status quo (see https://www.channel4.com/corporate/about-4/who-we-are/what-is-channel-4).…”

“…Drawing on the principles of textual analysis, moving image analysis relates to visual moving texts, paying careful attention to the production context, sequence and structure, aesthetics, textual meaning and narration of images (Markula & Silk, 2011 Pullen et al, 2018).…”

“…Taking this editorial position meant the need for 'competitive [sport] and Brits going for medals' (senior commissioning executive) in order for the public to 'embrace para sport in the same way that they have embraced British success in able bodied sport'. Whilst this was a clear commercial strategy, it was in part connected to the C4's statutory remit to advance the cause of marginalized groups in society and challenge dominant stereotypes; a (hyper-)visibility leading to a 'normalisation' of disability (Pullen et al, 2018).…”

“…As with other spectacularized sporting products, celebrity para-bodies serve to reflect literal embodiments of the competitiveness, determination, responsibility, and rationality underpinning neoliberalism's base individualism that conjure up preferred images of nation (see e.g. Pullen et al, 2018;).…”

Gender, technology and the ablenational Paralympic body politic

“…C4 brought a level of ambition for Paralympic broadcasting that was, in the words of their former Disability Executive Alison Walsh, at 'a whole new level' from previous events (Walsh 2014, p. 27). With blanket coverage, slick promotional trailers, dramatic backstories and 'edgy' coverage as an overarching frame for Paralympic representation in the United Kingdom (see Pullen et al 2018), we find ourselves in a moment in which we can ascertain a heightened, if fleeting and ephemeral, hyper-visibility of disability on television. This is important given there exists potential for such coverage to challenge the stereotypical framing of mediated disability: helpless or passive victims; vulnerable, pitiable and childlike dependents; 'supercrips' predicated on inspirational stories of determination and personal courage to overcome adversity; as asexual; as less than human villain, freak show, or exotic; as new folk devil (fraudulent, not disabled) and thereby less deserving; or, as unable to participate fully in everyday life (Barnes and Mercer 2010, Briant et al 2013, Jackson et al 2015.…”