Media, Marginality and Disability - Towards an Academic Synthesis

Abstract: I will begin by examining different perspectives which Disability Studies and Critical Disability Studies have developed on topics of media, culture, impairment and disability. Secondly, I will discuss the value of these approaches, in relation to a number of media and cultural studies perspectives on disability, addressing themes from semiotics, narrative analysis, genre and audience.

I will then focus on analysis of an independent film, Exhibit A (Dom Rotheroe, 2007), showing how a synthesis of Critical/ Disability Studies and Media/ Cultural studies is necessary if we are to build on the strengths, and go beyond the weaknesses or limitations, of both, in order to provide analysis which is full theorised and of value to the development of better representations. I will also question the marginalisation of disabled people in Cultural and Media Studies and the media, outlining some of the ways that a more interdisciplinary approach might work to promote forms of media which are conducive to social change.