How does the media generally view people with disabilities? Throughout history, individuals with disabilities, including those with Down syndrome, have been subject to marginalization and discrimination. This is not only apparent within history but within the general media as well, as most people with disabilities are seen as less fortunate and viewed with pity. As opposed to people without disabilities, the viewer generally forms a bias and reacts more sympathetic when hearing of people with disabilities. This can be seen in real life experiences as well, where people generally treat others with disabilities differently. When many of these people wish to just be treated like everyone else and live what they perceive to be a “normal” life, …show more content…
By doing so, it aims to challenge prevailing misconceptions and advocate for a more inclusive and empathetic society. In this essay, the primary focus will be on the representation and societal misconceptions of people with Down syndrome, highlighting their diverse experiences and contributions to society. People with Down syndrome have been conceptualized by the media and society as a whole to be all very similar to each other due to their genetic makeup, which causes them to have an extra chromosome. An effect of this would be that they all seem to have distinct physical descriptions. These physical traits cause people to recognize when someone has Down syndrome relatively easily, making it simple for people to be able to already have a certain bias in their head when meeting someone with Down syndrome. Before even meeting someone with Down syndrome, many already have made up their mind on how they are and how they will act, generalizing them as a …show more content…
The limited amount of information available online could correlate to parental stress among parents when raising a child with Down syndrome. Parents of children with Down syndrome have higher levels of stress than parents of children with no disabilities (Smith). The limited access to parenting books available for parents is visible when discerning between parents of children with disabilities and those without. The various challenges that come from raising a child with Down syndrome can include the language, communication, and learning difficulties which can induce parental stress within parents, causing them to feel worried that they are not providing the best future for their child. Furthering on this, parents globally have various different challenges dependent on where in the world they live (Van Riper). Further making the progression of available resources for parents of children much more difficult. With no basic premise of how to raise a child with Down syndrome being easily accessible around the world, the stress of being a parent can vary within different parts of the
Nancy Mairs, born in 1943, described herself as a radical feminist, pacifist, and cripple. She is crippled because she has multiple sclerosis (MS), which is a chronic disease involving damage to the nerve cells and spinal cord. In her essay Disability, Mairs’ focus is on how disabled people are portrayed, or rather un-portrayed in the media. There is more than one audience that Mairs could have been trying to reach out to with this piece. The less-obvious audience would be disabled people who can connect to her writing because they can relate to it. The more obvious audience would be physically-able people who have yet to notice the lack of disabled people being portrayed by the media. Her purpose is to persuade the audience that disabled people should be shown in the media more often, to help society better cope with and realize the presence of handicapped people. Mairs starts off by saying “For months now I’ve been consciously searching for representation of myself in the media, especially television. I know I’d recognize this self becaus...
Having Down Syndrome is a Horizontal identity. Most Americans view people with Down’s to be disabled and do not thing much past that. But, many people with Down’s see this simply as a part of who they are, just as much as the color of their eyes. To them, it is not a disability, but just a fact of life. Many outsiders do not understand this, which is why the Down’s community is so important. The Down’s community provides those with Down’s acceptance to their identity. While the rest of society rejects and pities them, within their community they can relate with others and be treated equally. Unlike with vertical identities where the parents are automatically insiders, parents must choose to whether or not to support their children’s horizontal identities. Some parents choose not to accept Down’s before the child is born and terminate the pregnancy while others do their best to make sure their child is comfortable in the world. Again, in more recent years, there are movements for society to be more educated and inclusive for those with Down Syndrome, but there is still a long way to go.
Dr. Munyi of Kenyatta University states in “Past and Present Perceptions Towards Disability: A Historical Perspective” that fear, ignorance, and superstition are among many social factors that have led to the development of stereotypes and prejudices towards disabled people. Throughout history people with disabilities have been thought to be possessed by the devil, inferior, witches, helpless, et cetera and have therefore been isolated because of the negative views placed on them. These perceptions are developed beginning at childhood as children are particularly vulnerable to views passed on from parents and social norms of the time (Munyi). The media also has a strong influence on stereotypes. Children and other heavy television viewers soak up the views projected on them by the media without question (Farnall and Smith). Especially because few “normal,” non-disabled, people interact frequently with disabled people, the stereotypes are strongly relied on and rarely change among communities (Munyi). Also, with respect to the blind, many of the stereotypes, especially negative ones, have stemmed from generalizations formed...
Down syndrome is a very common disorder now a day’s, but not many know what it actually is. Down syndrome was a topic that was not as common back in that day. “John Langdon Down, an English physician, published an accurate description of a person with Down syndrome. It was this scholarly
In 1886, physician John Langdon Down was the first scientist to identify Down syndrome. Down was the administrator of a mental institute for children in Surrey, England. From his observations and work at the institute, he was able to identify a set of children who exhibited characteristics such as short nose, broad flat face, short and broad hands, which are features commonly identified with Down syndrome. He later wrote an essay entitled “Observations of the Ethnic Classification of Idiots” in which he asserts the notion that it was possible to classify different types of health conditions through race. His essay included his now famous classification of what is today known as Down syndrome, which he categorized as the Mongol...
Wong, S. 2002. At Home with down Syndrome and Gender in Hypatia, Vol. 17, No. 3, Feminism and Disability, Part 2, 2002, pp. 89-117. Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
Having Down syndrome is like being born normal. I am just like you, and you are just like me. We are all born in different ways, that is the way I can describe it. I have a normal life"(Burke, C., n.d.). Where special education is concerned, one must always remember that exceptional learners are different, not less.
The first article I read was about disability portrayal and the media today. He talks about a show where the actor with a disability plays a character with a disability. That is great because it makes more sense to have someone disabled play a disabled part. A disabled person can not play a auto bodied role, so where is the fairness in that? He also talks about how disney made a movie about someone with a mental disability. Although it was played by a auto body actor, the story was authentic because it was told by the actually twin sister. I actually did see that movie a couple years ago. I enjoyed the movie and the storyline was good. He also said disability roles are the easiest way to a oscar. One of those movies if Forrest Gump. It is kinda sad that having to play being disabled is a way to get an oscar. Most disabled roles have sad stories, so it seems like them make you feel bad in order to win an oscar.
Children with disabilities are more in the public eye than years ago, although they are still treated differently. Our society treats them differently from lack of education on special needs. The society labels them and make their lives more difficult than it has to be becau...
Down syndrome is a medical condition where extra genetic material physically and mentally delays the way that a child develops (KidsHealth). Laws have been put in place to ensure that children with disabilities, including Down syndrome, are guaranteed to a free public education (National Down Syndrome Society). However, students typically at the elementary level, do not completely understand that other students with disabilities are just like them, regardless of their disability. It is more beneficial for students with down syndrome or those with other disabilities if teachers and administrators educated other students on how people with disabilities learn and function (National Down Syndrome
It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but our society today lacks to understand that. In today’s time different is not accepted, people that are different are discriminated, looked down upon and usually picked on. People with disabilities are seen as different creatures by most people, the disabled don’t choose to be the way they are, but still our society alienates them. There are different types of disabilities, some type of disabilities are; mental disability, physical disability, learning disability and socializing disability. These disabilities are seen as weakness in our society that hence contribute to the stereotype that leads to the discrimination against the disabled.
The first thought that crosses the mind of an able-bodied individual upon seeing a disabled person will undoubtedly pertain to their disability. This is for the most part because that is the first thing that a person would notice, as it could be perceived from a distance. However, due to the way that disability is portrayed in the media, and in our minds, your analysis of a disabled person rarely proceeds beyond that initial observation. This is the underlying problem behind why disabled people feel so under appreciated and discriminated against. Society compartmentalizes, and in doing so places the disabled in an entirely different category than fully able human beings. This is the underlying theme in the essays “Disability” by Nancy Mairs, “Why the Able-Bodied Just Don’t Get it” by Andre Dubus, and “Should I Have Been Killed at Birth?” by Harriet Johnson.
Living my life with a brother with disabilities has never been easy. It has been difficult throughout my life watching him grow up and encounter more and more struggles in life because of his disabilities. Our biggest question throughout the years, though, has been what our plan will be for him later in life. How will he live his life as an adult? Will he work? Where will he live? Will he have friends? How happy can he be? People with children with disabilities have to explain, “How do people with disabilities really fit into American society”? It’s not just families discussing this question; experts as well are debating this unknown by looking at the same questions I mentioned before. Looking at where disabled people are living, whether they are working, and the relationships they have with other people are ways to understand how disabled people fit into American society. This topic should not only matter to people close to disabled people, but to everyone. In some way, every one of us is affected by this topic; we want everyone in our family to lead “successful” lives (have a job/have somewhere to live). The same goes for families with people with disabilities.
The newspaper dailies, have the ability to link persons with disability to the world. Still, no research has been found specifically on persons with disabilities and their portrayal in the newspaper daily in India. Many studies have focused on the more general topic of disabilities in the news (Mick 1996; Power 2006; Haller, Dorries, and Rahn 2006). Person with disabilities are also part of the society. The newspaper dailies depict the persons with disabilities, as reflection of the society’s perspective about them. Content analysis of media is a traditional mass communication research method used to assess a wide range of media content trends (Poothullil J.M.Martin 2008). This research paper advocates for increased newspaper analysis within the disability studies field. Using a short term media research study about Hindustan Times (HT) Newspaper daily and its news coverage of disability issue. This paper explores the shifting nature of recent disability coverage in Mumbai newspapers, for a period of 3 months in 2012. Content analysis based research found that the newspaper under study reported sensational and gender biased news related to disability issues.
People with disabilities are still people, they are people with hearts and they are actual physical beings; people with disabilities do their best to live every day to their fullest, yet that is still not enough for others. I feel like as a whole, humans are generally uncomfortable with people who have disabilities. Let’s think of it this way, people live their life every day in their normal lives and then they come across a person with a disability and suddenly their life is interrupted, like it is such a barrier in their flow of life to come across someone different from themselves.