Disability and Disability Sport on the BBC and Channel 4: Analysing the Audience Reception and Production Processes of Mediated Disability Sport in the UK
摘要
This chapter focuses on audience and media professionals’ perceptions of the televised content relating to disability and disability sport broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a free-to-air public service broadcaster, and Channel 4, a mainstream commercial television broadcaster, in the United Kingdom. This chapter investigates whether Channel 4 portrays disability in shows which are designed to be laughed at or laughed with, given that Channel 4 has the United Kingdom broadcasting rights to the coverage of both the Summer and Winter Paralympics. The chapter draws upon questionnaires completed by 24 members of the public with a disability, and interviews with five media professionals whose line of work covers disability. The findings from the questionnaire element of the data collection process illustrate that those participants (with a visible or invisible disability) mostly feel best represented by factual programmes. However, the analysis also found that the participants feel that, when disabilities are shown in the media, it is predominantly done so to entertain. These findings are complemented with analysis of interviews with media professionals from both Channel 4 and BBC, whose line of work covers disability which suggest that, whilst change is happening regarding media portrayals of disability, the consensus is that this change is a marathon and not a sprint. We therefore contend that the two broadcasters show disability and disability sport differently, drawing upon contrasting theories—the medical model of disability, the social model of disability, and crip theory—illustrating mediated stereotypes of disability and the impact of ‘inspiration porn’ and this ‘unconscious’ negative representation this has on the viewer.