Beyond the Aww Factor: Human Interest Profiles of Paralympians and the Media Navigation of Physical Difference and Social Stigma

摘要: People with disability negotiate a complex identity that involves both physical difference and social stigma. Excluded from other identity-based areas of inquiry, encouraged to pass as unimpaired by human rights models (see the ability), media representations purporting offer empowerment may actually perpetuate biomedical model it discursively situates deficit. Drawing on work undertaken Schell Duncan (1999) this article critically examines current affairs programming (60 Minutes Australian Story) leading up 2008 Paralympics Games highlight role plays in reflecting reinforcing disablement. I will likewise explore way aspects these profiles, which foreground relevance impairment lives people disability, potentially advance understandings disability.