Analysis of Disability Representation in Media: A Sociological View

This essay examines the media representation of people with disabilities, focusing on two examples: the magazine "Today's Kids in Motion" and the movie "Citizen Sam." The analysis explores how these media sources portray individuals with disabilities, highlighting both positive and negative aspects. "Today's Kids" is praised for showcasing the lives of disabled children and offering resources, while "Citizen Sam" is recognized for depicting a disabled politician. However, the essay critiques both for shortcomings, such as limited accessibility features in the magazine and tokenistic approaches in the movie. The essay identifies good, bad, and ugly representations, emphasizing the need for accurate and effective media portrayals that support the inclusion and empowerment of disabled individuals. The author calls for improvements in media representation to align with disability standards and promote societal understanding.

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Media representation of people with disability in society
Name
Institution.

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The media representation chosen here for matters of disability is Today's Kids in Motion
and the movie Citizen Sam. The magazine Todays Kids provides an effective display of a
glimpse into the life of children who are living in the society. The magazine was published by
the Canadian Abilities Organization. The magazine Is titled "Role into Spring" and it offers a
wide range of techniques where individuals who have disabilities are provided with a variety of
options that allows them to advent more in their lives. The magazine thus portrays a good
concept of disability studies (Briant & Philo 2013). This can be seen in terms of the information
that various readers can easily access the magazine. According to the contents of the magazine,
there is a good accommodation for people who have disabilities. The magazine has also
effectively guided how children who live with a disability in the society can easily cope with the
stress that they usually face while dealing with their living conditions. The magazine is a very
good disability medium as it provides a form of hope to children that have a learning disability is
schools (Briant & Philo 2013). It has effectively highlighted the technological capabilities that
are available and parents can utilize them to enhance their disabled children's performance and
thus interact happily with other normal children in the society.
The second media representation of the disability study is the Citizen Scan, A Canadian
movie. The movie revolves around an inspirational story of Sam Sullivan, who is a Vancouver
city councilor and is running for a major position. As seen in the film, politics have been
displayed to him as a pure hell and he has also been faced with serious difficulties in terms of
running its major campaigns. The councilor is physically disabled and operates from his
wheelchair. This movie is also a good representation of people with disabilities as it has
effectively highlighted that people with disabilities can also compete politically with other
normal people in society. The movie is a good representation of people with disabilities as it also

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illustrates a sense of independence that the disabled people can attain in case they become
determined and operate beyond their disabled state (Beckwith et al., 2016). This movie, however,
is not very effective in highlighting the effective ways in which Sullivan faces as he faces his
opponents in the political arena. As seen from the movies, there is a piece of clear evidence that
people with disabilities are quite limited in terms of counteracting the rocky challenges which
they face while participating in politics. This two media representation provides an effective and
a good illustration of the plight of people with disability in society. They are good media
representation and it is agreeable that they are very important in addressing issues that the
disabled people face in society. The two sources provide a direct and one on one analysis of the
life of the disabled and how they can use their conditions to rise in the ranks in various arenas as
other normal people in the society do.
Even though both media sources attempt to talk about people with disabilities in society,
there are evident shortcomings of the sources. The sources somehow to not attain certain
standards. Some of the notable standards descriptions for people with disabilities have not been
described in the media sources. The magazine. Today's Kids have not effectively utilized some
of the disability standards procedure that making it limited to some extent regarding the
information accessible to people with disabilities in society in general. No meaningful text
images have been provided in the magazine to make it very suitable for disabled people in
society (Beckwith et al., 2016). The online versions of the magazine do not have images that
have editable options. This will enable people reading the online magazine to comment on the
images that have been incorporated in the magazines. This is one of the notable limitations of the
magazine. The magazine has also been crowded and every portion has not been effectively

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relayed and this is against the disability stands as people with disabilities might find it quite
difficult in extracting this information. These features of the magazine as a media representation
show how it falls short of the disability standards that every media source is expected to be in
line with. This limitation thus portrays the magazine a bad media source to some extent but it
must be known that the magazine is still very effective in terms of relaying information of
children with disabilities in society generally.
Considering the analysis of the movie Citizen Sam, the movie can also be considering a
bad Media representation of Disability to some extent. This challenge ranges from how disabled
people have been portrayed in the movie scenes and the production techniques that have been
used for the movie. An evaluation of the movie's production techniques reveals certain
shortcomings concerning the disability standards that have been set in the Canadian Society in
general. The movie has not taken into consideration of certain needs of the disabled people in the
society (Beckwith et al., 2016). The film videos have not considered the use of video captions
that will also assist people with disabilities to understand the contents of the film. This is a key
disability concept that was not considered in the production of the movie. This implied that
individuals who dot here were not incorporated in the production of the movies. This is against
the set standards of the disabilities requirements for the production of films for people living
with disabilities in society.
As initially analyzed these media production sources were portrayed as good sources of
production of information of people living with disabilities in the society. The above-highlighted
challenges must, therefore, be corrected so that they become perfectly aligned to the required
disability standards production. Improvement can be made in the nest magazine production or

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the incorporation of movie captions that will also enable the disabled people in the society to
understand and enjoy the movies.
There are specific elements of the media film sources that make them an ugly representation for
individuals living with disabilities in society. The magazine has utilized an albenistic
representation of people living in society. There is evident utilization of pejorative language in
the magazine. This is clear evidence of people living with disabilities in society. Examples of
pejorative language that is quite evident in the magazine and the movie scenes include the use of
words such as crazy for people who are living with mental disability in the society generally.
Disabilities metaphors are heavily bound in both the movie and the magazine. When such
magazines and movies revolts around such elastic reference to people living with disability in the
society, it quite clear that they play a bad role in not ensuring the inclusion of people living with
disability in the society. Individuals living with disabilities must also thus be shown a certain
level of entitlement in society in general (Sleeter & Grant, 2017). These albenistic approaches,
therefore, illustrates certain aspects of linguistic macroaggression to people who are living in the
society. These macroaggressions must also be limited in movie productions such as the Citizen
Sam. This ugly representation is not quite useful in limiting the advancement of discrimination
that people living with disabilities are faced with in society.
The tokenistic approach to addressing the plight of disabled people in society is quite a dated
approach. This technic is evident in both the magazine and the movies as example media
sources. The movie's main protagonists have been used as a source of inspiration to the audience
in the movie. This tokenistic approach of the movies "Citizen Sam" is ugly and is not in perfect
line with the most disability policy. An evaluation of the approach reveals that it takes advantage
of the disabled people in society (Beckwith et al., 2016). The approach is quite misguided and

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creates a bad perception of people in society. To achieve effective disability representation in
movies and magazines tokenism as a technique must thus be limited to a certain extent. This will
help readers and viewers to form the right opinion about the disabled people in society. People in
society will thus understand that disability can not only be used as a motivational tool in movies
and that they will be ready in addressing the plight of disabled people in society.
From the media sources analysis, there is an effective illustration of what is termed as good, bad,
and ugly representation of people living with disabilities in society. The two media sources are
thus effective in drawing these disparities and outlaying the disability standards that are required
of various sources in Canada and other parts of the world. The analysis that emphasizes the fact
the disabled in the society possess abilities and can lead their life independently. The analysis of
the two media sources thus calls for the support of the disabled through accurate and effective
media representation.

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References
Briant, E., Watson, N., & Philo, G. (2013). Reporting disability in the age of austerity: the
changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United
Kingdom and the creation of new ‘folk devils’. Disability & Society, 28(6), 874-889.
Sleeter, C. E., & Grant, C. A. (2017). Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks.
The politics of the textbook (pp. 78-110). Routledge.
Beckwith, R. M., Friedman, M. G., & Conroy, J. W. (2016). Beyond tokenism: People with
complex needs in leadership roles: A review of the literature. Inclusion, 4(3), 137-155.