Representation of Disabled Community in Mainstream Media

2.1 Definition and concept of disability

Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (Goodley, 2010) in Britain defined disability as anyone with a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect upon their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. The term ‘disability’ indicates something missing either fiscally, physically, mentally or legally (Goodley, 2010). Disabled world (2019) produced a formal definition of disability from the conclusion of different scholars: ‘A disability is a condition or function judged to be significantly impaired relative to the usual standard of an individual or group. The term is used to refer to individual functioning, including physical impairment, sensory impairment, cognitive impairment, intellectual impairment mental illness, and various types of chronic disease’.

In Norazit (2010), the medical model of disability addressed disability/impairment directly within the individual as something to be treated (by the ‘doctor’) or something to be overcome (by the ‘patient’) as there is the lack of ‘agency’ in determining their own affairs. The socio-medical model also maintains the idea that disability is an abnormality locates within the individual, even though recognizing the social factor of disability. While the social model of disability, locates disability within the society and / or in the environment. In referring to Mairian Corker, social model of disability separates disability from impairment and then attributes the creation of disability to the dominant socio-cultural environment (Watson et al., 1998). Thus, disability is an outcome of the external constraints which prevent them from living their life in the way that they would want (Fawcett, 2000).

2.2 Media representation of Disability

Goggin (2009) argued the charity approach of disability in media representation, wherein disability is being known as a tragedy and people with disability need to be looked after, or helped, as they lack the resources, ability or power to survive independently. Through this approach, people with disabilities are conceptualized as structurally vulnerable, and in need of special treatment by those in the media. From the viewpoint of journalists, they fulfill their professional responsibility as they cover important issues in society accordingly. However, from the perspective of people with disabilities, it is unnecessary to allow the establishment of the linkage between disability and vulnerability in media. Byrd and Elliott (1988) stated that the stereotype depiction of disability is prevalent in the classical and model literature because disability has been frequently used as a symbol or embodiment of psychological insight into literary characterizations. Even in children’s literature, the disability embodiment is common. Following Byrd and Elliott (1988), televisions have also been a source of well-intentioned, but degrading presentation of people with disabilities. Television presentations do not provide correct information and they even strengthen stereotypes despite the fact that they could contribute to the increase of fund.

Byrd and Elliott (1988) argued that unrealistic and negative portrayals on television and movie widen the communication gap between persons with and without disabilities. Positive attitudes toward disability could be cultivated through interaction, whether portrayals of disability in television and movie are of critical or financial successes. The effort of presenting a neutral view with accurate perspective and information could generate positive interaction between persons with and without disabilities despite economic factors. In Barnes and Mercer study (2011), the misrepresentation of disability in charity advertising is mainly caused by the adoption of representation of people with disabilities from other cultural forms. The study looked into misrepresentation of disabled people in the media and suggested some significant recommendations to curb the problematic media scenario. Positive alternative can be achieved unless it run and controlled by disabled people instead of involving the specialist disability media. In this research, it is to look into the portrayal of disabilities in Malaysian mainstream press.

2.3 Marginalization of Disabled group

Cain (2012) argued that the disabled often suffer of attitudinal barriers and environmental barriers. Attitudinal barriers are about the assumptions about capabilities and dependency, which can lead to overprotection and disempowerment that resulted to the negative attitudes and perception towards persons with disabilities. Environmental barriers are found in the constructed environment, for instance unattainable public buildings and communication infrastructure including absence of information in accessible formats. When environmental barriers meet attitudinal barriers, it can cause the exclusion of person with disabilities in the involvement of social, civil and political processes. This will lead to discrimination and social exclusion, together with the invisibility of persons with disabilities at all levels of society and the lack of positive role-models, persons with disabilities themselves often suffer from low self-esteem, confidence and aspirations, all of which impact on their ability to participate equally in all areas of social, economic and cultural life. Islam et al. (2014) initiated the academic debate whether disability is the product of social exclusion and how true it is in Malaysia context. There is an absence of literature looking into the question that disability is the product of social exclusion. Nonetheless, majority of the studies from global context suggested that social exclusion is caused by the disability, thus their needs and rights are being marginalized.

The European Disability Forum (n.d.) highlighted that the disabled are undoubtedly among the most vulnerable to fall under social exclusion. The significant factors that lead to social exclusion for disabled are the lack or limited access to social environment and unemployment, the lack or limited access to goods and services, stigmatization of disabled people, the lack of adequate training, the lack of specialized services, the inadequacy of the education system, the lack of economic policies to compensate for the extra cost of disability, the structure of the benefit system, and finally living in institutions’. Jenkins & Rigg and Burchardt (Islam et al., 2014) discovered the risk factors of older disabled people with lower average household incomes, are less likely to be in paid work, and have lower educational qualifications, on average. Duffy and Klasen (Islam et al., 2014) stated that social exclusion is related to the inability to participate effectively in economic, social, and cultural life and, in some characteristics, isolation and distance from mainstream society. Burchardt (Islam et al., 2014) emphasized that from social model perspective, disability is seen as the social and economic disadvantage which results from society’s failure to respond to the needs of people with impairments. This research is therefore to look into whether the disabled group is marginalized in the Malaysian society from their own perspectives.

2.4 Disability culture

Disability is presumed as a kind of mainstream culture to aid the understanding of the conformation of the disability framing in mainstream media that affected the representation of disability. Barnes and Mercer (2011) indicated disability as a form of culture. A wide interpretation has formed by sociological studies of culture to include symbolic characteristics of human society, for instance rituals, beliefs, customs, work patterns, leisure, values, activities, and material goods. ‘Culture consists of the values the members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create (Giddens, 1989)’. Values depict ‘abstract ideals’ while norms are the rules that fit into the social life. This emphasized the ‘common perspective of culture as a “way of life” as culture is “signifying system” through which practices, meanings, and values are “communicated, reproduced, experienced and explored.”

Davis (1995) outlined the development of the concept of disability in accordance with the social construction of ‘normalcy’. ‘The implications of the hegemony of normalcy are profound and extend into the very heart of cultural production (Davis, 1995). Davis (1995) proposed that ‘one can find in almost any novel... a kind of surveying of the terrain of the body, an attention to difference...physical, mental and national’. The two deep-rooted cultural extremes in the society: medical and social model have created continuous impacts on the conception of disability, and further promoted and entrenched by the media representation. Unconsciously, this has become a common sense that presumed by almost everyone, including government, teachers, media practitioners and children. Due to the cultural extremes, there are negative portrayal of disabled community in media through vulnerability connotation and disability embodiment in classic literature. The misrepresentation also appeared in television programmes, movie and advertising.

A sense of common identity and interests produced by disability culture group disabled people together yet separated them from the counterparts of nondisabled (Barnes & Mercer, 2011). Historically, representations of disability are formed by non-disabled people. To fit into the regime of disability culture, it is inevitable that the manipulation of journalists in news writing has influenced the perception and mindset of public towards disabled community. Subsequently, it has led to the reinforcement of social and cultural divisions between disabled and non-disabled people through persistent disability representation in media. The representation of disability poses a significant role in presenting the status of disabled community. When the disability culture is prevalent in the society, people with disabilities have become the victim of the social exclusion and marginalization. Meanwhile, there is also the concern of the absence of local literature highlighting disability as the product of social exclusion. The collaboration of ILO-Irish Aid Partnership Programme’s project with disabled association in Thailand and UNICEF disabled children project have shed positive lights in the media scenario. Although Malaysian media are always chained under controls, restrictions and ownerships, if changes can be made, disabled people will no longer needing to suffer from misrepresentation and marginalization in the future. However, there is the limitation of disability culture as it does not scrutinize the culture from the perspective of people with disabilities. Disability culture just discusses on the common culture that hold by abled-people towards disability instead of people with disabilities. Therefore, the research methods formed will include the perspective from people with visual impairment as the representative of disabled group to resolve the limitation.

Nonetheless, it is true to admit that disability culture is such a powerful and influential culture that capable in shaping the mindset of the society towards disability, especially through media representation. Naturally, mainstream media adopted the hegemony of the culture and spread this conception back to the media consumers in a form of cycle. Generally, the non-disabled readers have conformed to the pattern of disability culture in news coverage, so they do not assume this as a critical problem. Awareness should be raised by media practitioners to address the misrepresentation of disabled community in mainstream media generally.

4.1 Representation of disabled community portrayed by mainstream media

In the interview, both YK and Moses shared the opinion that the news of disabled are all about their misfortunes, desperate cases, and excellent achievements. Most of the times, cases of miseries are being highlighted and to a lesser extent there are news about their excellent achievement. However, from the result of content analysis, there are news coverage achievement of the visually impaired as mentioned by them, for instance ‘a blind student scored straight As in SPM’, and the world news of the ‘first vision-impaired candidate who aspire to become an English teacher by taking the International English Language Testing System in China’. Other than reporting about allegations and achievements, there are few news covered on the technologies that could help the visually impaired, including the ‘blind mother seeing the baby for the first time’, ‘electronic dictionary for the blinds’, ‘the launching of the new Maybank-MAB Cinema for the visually impaired’. Comparing the result from both interview and content analysis, Mun has not seen any issue of marginalization of disabled group in media coverage, indeed the disabled group has been highlighted positively and some are published as headlines.

The arrangement of the news stories could affect the representation of people with visual impairment as it can show the level of importance of a particular news. According to Mun, the news of people with visual impairment are concerned and published under home news section in order to create more awareness of the society particularly activities related to blind associations. The findings of content analysis also depicted the allocation of blinds’ news stories through grouping them based on the section, category and label. Most of the news stories gathered are from main sections, including home news and technology news. For page label, majority of the news are nation news, whereas some are regional news, world news, sport news, and community news. Most of the news stories accompanied with the picture of disabled and focused on disabled as main subject in the news story. The misrepresentations of the visually impaired in news coverage are known to the three interviewees. They notice and are aware of the misrepresentations as mainstream news always portrays the visually impaired people as victims, by describing how pathetic they are. Mun pointed that disabled are always being categorized under the same group with kids, pregnant women in the news coverage as minorities, to highlight the need for special care and help.

The news about disabled are politically dominated as how politicians offer the help towards the disabled. The association of news are frequently appeared during major festivals in the country. There is always the combination of sympathy and encouragement in news coverage by implying a disabled people who needs extra effort to achieve something compared to others. It is common to see the portrayal of news that ‘they are disabled yet they achieved’, as highlighted by YK. YK once highlighted this issue to the reporter of a local Chinese newspaper to ensure the portrayal as ‘everyone can make it’ since everyone has own strengths and weaknesses. Media should not over amplify someone’s disability. However, the amplification in word usage in portrayal of disabled news still exists as usual.

However, Moses was disturbed with the misleading message in newspaper such as ‘leading a blind with a cane to cross the road’ which he deemed as lacking respect and misleading. Moses opined that holding their hands will be the best way to guide them but sadly most of the people have misunderstood and do not realize this problem. A remarkable finding obtained from the interview is that disabled people will not be offended with the terms used to refer them. To Moses, journalists should be straight forward in using the words and it is unnecessary to think of any nicer term to refer the blind, such as ‘sightless’ and ‘visually impaired’. Through the content analysis in selected newspaper, the terms appeared in the news stories are ‘blind’, ‘visually impaired’, ‘blind student’, ‘blind mother’, blind, visually impaired, people with visual impairment, ‘buta’ (blind), ‘cacat penglihatan’ (visually impaired) and ‘orang buta’ (blind people). For the disabled group, they are comfortable and accept to be called as ‘blind’.

4.2 Factors of marginalization of disabled group in mainstream media

According to Mun, she believes that it is not about whether someone is disabled or not, if there is a disabled person belonging to the dominated group, it is possible to create the similar impact in grabbing media attention, such as the former National Chairman of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), Karpah Singh who had to be in his wheelchair due to an accident. As in the context of economy, the contents of newspapers are predetermined by what the chief editor asked to highlight. The newspapers tend to have selective reporting by covering news that contain values and with better human interests.

Misrepresentation of disabled could be explained by social stereotype culture, as mentioned by YK, because the public always conceive disabled community as victims. At times mainstream media are just simulating the common thoughts of the society, and this is the reflection of the mainstream society. Consequently, this will form general perspective of the society towards disabled group as public tend follow the agenda set by mainstream media, which continuously cause misrepresentations. All the three interviewees do not think ‘disability culture’ is prevalent in Malaysia and treat it as part of the mainstream cultures as the term is way too heavy. According to YK, there is no clear definition to describe the context between media and disabled group, but it is more inclined to social cultural perspective. However, according to Moses, he would rather define the phenomenon as the lack of focus. It is not about the domination of culture, but the representation of disabled group is unsatisfying.

4.3 Ways to represent disabled community through media in a better way

Moses suggests a column to be created for the disabled group just like the column of Wheel Power of The Star, which catered to the disabled community to contribute their viewpoints towards social issues. Mun mentioned that politicians have influential power in setting the agenda. If they can actively concern and discuss more about the issues of disabled community, the disabled group can easily grab the attention of media and help in raising awareness of the public. Another common problem is, some of the blinds still conceive themselves as victims, as well as the blind associations. According to YK and Mun, the blind association itself should be more proactive in getting their news to be published. Awareness can be raised by changing the mindset of blind association and the blinds. The members of blind association shall be able to promote the scheme, appearance and reality of the blinds for mainstream media to cover, rather than accepting their portrayal as victims in a passive way.

Mainstream media should be improved to enhance the representation of disabled community. According to YK, he thinks the mainstream media could help by reporting the reality of what they are going through, especially social issues pertaining to job seeking. Some employers are willing to hire the disabled but simply ignorant of what they can do for them. This is because media have not educated them well about disabled community. In content analysis, out of the 17 news, there is one news from Utusan Malaysia that covered on their occupation, which is ‘Menyelami kehidupan tukang urut buta’ (Life of blind chiropractors) on 11 April 2015. It covers about the well-trained blind chiropractors from Malaysian Association of the Blind (MAB). Another news from Sin Chew Daily on 17 February 2015 also partially covered about occupation of the blind crafter who made handicrafts of gold sheep in conjunction of the Chinese New Year.

According to Moses, newspaper do not really play a great role in educating public. This has led to the phenomenon that most of the people are ignorant of the struggles faced by disabled community. In order to let public to understand better towards disabled community, it is necessary to educate them through improvising the content of mainstream media. Apart from that, YK stresses that it is not about how frequent the representation will be, but how in-depth the issues of disabled community to be explored, and the initiatives of scrutinizing it from various angles. Thus, journalists of mainstream media ought to work on the content of news to construct positive values among the readers towards disabled community. The results of content analysis help in supporting the viewpoints of the interviewees. The opinions given by the interviewees have shed some positive lights to the research in addressing the types of representation, the problems of the representations and ways to rectify misrepresentations in mainstream media content. Although the portion of the news coverage of blind community is relatively lesser, most of their news stories are positive rather than typical misrepresentations which portray them as the subject of traumatic stories. However, the charity approach of misrepresenting them as victim in news stories is still a common tactic, which resulted in the widening of the gap between disabled people and non-disabled people. Despite the disapproval of interviewees to define such phenomenon as marginalization and put the blame on the domination of disability culture, two factors that led to misrepresentations are socioeconomic status and sociocultural perspective. Lastly, the recommendations to rectify misrepresentations are given by the interviewees based on personal experiences, included the allocation of special column for disabled community, cooperation of different parties in raising the awareness of the public and improvement that can be made on mainstream media content.