Disability, the Media and the Paralympic Games

This book focuses on the ground-breaking coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games by the UK’s publicly-owned but commercially-funded Channel 4 network, coverage which seemed to deliver a transformational shift in attitudes towards people with disabilities.

Carolyn Jackson-Brown is Senior Lecturer in Journalism & Sports Journalism at Leeds Trinity University, UK. Her research focuses on media production and representations of difference.

1. Introduction, 2. Spectacles of Otherness: Media, sports and disability dilemmas, 3. Riskier Representations: Channel 4's public service broadcast model, 4. Normalising Disability: Mega-event media parity for the 'superhuman' supercrips, 5. Reframing Meanings: Encoding disability across multiple TV programme formats, 6. Marketing Parasports: Media, cultural production, and branded authenticity, 7. Conclusion