Disability as a Social Construction

This paper employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the representation of autism within a small sample of mainstream newspaper articles. The paper concludes that media, as a communicative tool, has enormous cultural power whereby the portrayal of Autism as a disability is predicated on notion...

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Main Author: Lauren Hamilton
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Liverpool John Moores University 2019-07-01
Series:PRISM
Online Access:https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/prism/article/view/281
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author Lauren Hamilton
author_facet Lauren Hamilton
author_sort Lauren Hamilton
collection DOAJ
description This paper employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the representation of autism within a small sample of mainstream newspaper articles. The paper concludes that media, as a communicative tool, has enormous cultural power whereby the portrayal of Autism as a disability is predicated on notions of normality and underpinned by ableist ideology. Such promotion of normalcy and disability in general can serve to generate and sustain disabling barriers and oppression. This hegemonic practice therefore produces a replicative process that is detrimental to the production of social justice and equality within contemporary society and culture.
format Article
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institution Kabale University
issn 2514-5347
language English
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publisher Liverpool John Moores University
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series PRISM
spelling doaj-art-e433985cd12841ed849a8a9550d731642025-02-03T03:18:12ZengLiverpool John Moores UniversityPRISM2514-53472019-07-0122Disability as a Social ConstructionLauren Hamilton0University Centre at Blackburn College This paper employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the representation of autism within a small sample of mainstream newspaper articles. The paper concludes that media, as a communicative tool, has enormous cultural power whereby the portrayal of Autism as a disability is predicated on notions of normality and underpinned by ableist ideology. Such promotion of normalcy and disability in general can serve to generate and sustain disabling barriers and oppression. This hegemonic practice therefore produces a replicative process that is detrimental to the production of social justice and equality within contemporary society and culture. https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/prism/article/view/281
spellingShingle Lauren Hamilton
Disability as a Social Construction
PRISM
title Disability as a Social Construction
title_full Disability as a Social Construction
title_fullStr Disability as a Social Construction
title_full_unstemmed Disability as a Social Construction
title_short Disability as a Social Construction
title_sort disability as a social construction
url https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/prism/article/view/281
work_keys_str_mv AT laurenhamilton disabilityasasocialconstruction