Enduring Social Representations of Disability: A reflective qualitative study of print media, occupational therapy and disability policy

This thesis examines enduring stereotypes of and discursive struggles over social representation of disability in the print media, in professional groups such as occupational therapists who work with disabled people and in the policy, design and delivery of services. Literature from the disability movement accessed during the study suggested the print media, allied health and social care professionals, and government disability policy were three areas of discourse with the potential to influence the lives of disabled people through their discursive practices. This qualitative study was conducted in three consecutive phases from 1996 to 2003 in both the United Kingdom and Australia. It uses Critical Discourse Analysis and a multi-methodological approach to collect and analyse time-specific textual data for depictions of disability within the three discourse areas. The analysis employed textual material from three UK broadsheet newspapers, educational and practice documents developed by occupational therapists in NSW, and disability policy documents produced by the Australian Federal and NSW State Governments. All three phases of the analysis suggested discursive practices which continue to represent disability within four major enduring or stereotypical depictions (Barnes 1992:5). These depictions often showed disabled people as: sick and in need of treatment, financial burdens, objects of charitable care and/or as ‘super-crips’. Some of the time disabled people were often missing from the discourse altogether and only rarely were representations of disability commensurate with precepts of the social model of disability. Since the research commenced in the late 1990s, the position of disabled people in the UK has improved by the introduction of new services acknowledging some of the demands from disability organisations. However, the story has not been replicated in NSW and understanding disability as resulting from social barriers still flounders. The analysis suggests this is partly because of the ideological ascendancy of neo-liberal policies. It is also due to medical dominance in services which permeates the press, professional practice and the design and delivery of community-based disability services. This ideological and discursive struggle seems to be particular to Australia (Willis 2006) and is unlikely to change while services and systems fail to include more appropriate models of disability in the dialogue of their development