Inequality and Day-to-Day Encounters with Media

Abstract

Disabled people have a complex relationship with media as content consumers, activist organizers, and technological innovators. This chapter highlights the underexplored theoretical connections between disability and media sociology and suggests how disability can inform and improve the sociological study of media. The authors draw on various cultural theories and concepts to emphasize how inequalities are perpetuated in disabled individuals’ day-to-day-media encounters. First, the chapter reviews media “access work,” or the paid and voluntary efforts of individuals who labor to make media technologies accessible, and how this work has historically been devalued and rendered invisible. Next, the chapter discusses social media and online communities as powerful resources for generating and sharing knowledge among people with disabilities, while contending with major structural limitations to their participation. Lastly, the chapter explores mass media and the tensions inherent in disability media representation both on- and off-screen. The discussion concludes with suggested areas for future research at the intersections of disability and media sociology that take seriously the mediated work of disabled individuals, employ explicitly anti-ableist approaches, and recognize the need for cultural accessibility.