‘BETTER A SUPERHERO THAN A VICTIM’: A STUDY ABOUT PERCEPTIONS BY ATHLETES AND FORMER ATHLETES WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT ABOUT MEDIA COVERAGE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-8918.84237Keywords:
Paralympic sport. Vision disorders. Social medias.Abstract
According to several studies, Paralympic athletes tend to be portrayed by the media as victims of their impairments and/or as superheroes/supercrips. This article analyzes the perception of athletes and former athletes with visual impairment about how they are portrayed by the media. We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured and in-depth interviews with five athletes and two former athletes with visual impairment. We found that respondents do not identify themselves as “poor things” and do not approve of relating disability to suffering. We also found that there is no consensus on the superhero/supercrip approach. Our conclusion is that the media should not reproduce one perspective or another because they do not match the reality of people with visual impairment and tend to perpetuate stigmas and prejudices against them.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Movimento
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Movimento adopts the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) for approved and published works. This means that authors:
- keep their copyrights and grant right of first publication to the journal; and
- as long as the authors’ names and Movimento’s initial publication rights are acknowledged, the authors may share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially).
More information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
