Disability and the Media

An approachable but critical introduction to the complex relationship between disability and the media, bringing together prominent theoretical work and research on disability internationally, with analysis and examples of a range of contemporary media issues in news, the press, broadcasting and new media.

Katie Ellis is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University, Australia. She has participated in several feature film and documentary productions in both research and production roles and has mentored people with disabilities interested in film production as part of a Lotterywest funded community initiative for culturally and linguistically diverse youth with disabilities. Her main areas of research focus on disability, cinema and digital and networked media, extending across both issues of representation and active possibilities for social inclusion.

Gerard Goggin is Professor of Media and Communications the University of Sydney, Australia. He has had a long-time interest in disability and media, dating back to the early 1990s, when he worked with disability groups and media organizations on new media policy. He has published on a wide range of aspects of disability and media, including the representation of disability in media, celebrity, sport, refugees, the employment of people with disabilities in the film industry, and online and mobile media. He has also undertaken commissioned research for the then Australian Film Commission on the representation of people with disabilities in the screen industries.