Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language

Abstract

This study examines disability terminology to explore how the news media frame cultural representations of the disability community. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on journalist's language choices about disability topics. A content analysis of news stories using disability terms in The Washington Post and The New York Times during the past decade was conducted. The paper illustrates that disability community identity continues to be formed, transformed and maintained through news media presentations of disability terminology. The paper argues that the US Disability Rights Movement had some success during the 1990s in putting forth language that advances its aims, though the study also suggests that some journalists continue to use terms that perpetuate limiting, narrow stereotypes about people with disabilities.

Notes

1. As this paper is about disability terminology in the US media, the preferred term in the USA, ‘people with disabilities’, will be used. It is understood that other English‐speaking countries have other preferred terms.