Fourteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

The study investigates how physical disability has been trivialized in social media via one-dimensional images. People with disabilities have been visually portrayed as inspirational and role models of sorts (what has become known as “inspiration porn”). The project reviews the literature and then conducts long-form interviews with people with disabilities, including social media influencers, and analyzes available images on a variety of social media platforms, primarily Instagram. Findings support the existing criticisms that such portrayal casts disabled people as “the other”, presents disability as burden on the society that needs to be “overcome” instead of concentrating on removing societal obstacles and it also reduces disabled people to inspirational posters thus dehumanizing them. Visual portrayal of disability in pseudo-inspirational ways in fact reinforces the stereotypes society harbors toward disabled individuals, who are perceived as less-than-equal to other members of the society unless they “overcome” their perceived deficiency. The framework is Susan Sontag’s 1978 re-casting of discourse toward long-term health conditions not in the terms of improvement or overcoming, but of acceptance and accommodation. The study further proposes guidelines for professional media and amateur social media mavens alike that can lead to more equitable representations of disability in the media, particularly with respect to visual images.