The portrait of people with disabilities : - A quantitative and qualitative study on what image SVT- and TV4- news creates of people with disabilities

The study has answered the questions to what extent people with disabilities are involved in SVT- and TV4- news reports and how people with disabilities are represented in news reports. The material is based on 140 news items. The study has demonstrated that news reports SVT and TV4 have different grades of misconceptions about disabled people. Disabled people are constantly being reinforced by negative disabling terms, the disability being of central importance for the news broadcast and they still occur in stereotypical depictions. Through the image of disabled people forms the bed-rock on which the attitudes towards, assumptions and expectations of disabled people are based on. They are fundamental to discrimination and exploitation that people with disabilities face on a daily basis, and contributes significantly to their systematic exclusion from mainstream society. Their continued use could contribute to the negative self-image of disabled people and, at the same time, perpetuates discriminatory attitudes and practices among the general public