The medical model of disability sees disability as a medical problem
Shakespeare
Disabled people are often socialised into seeing themeseleves as victims and that people with
impairment may accept victim mentality use it as a reason for failure
Major obstacles to forming a positive disabled identity- lack of role models and the media
Barnes
Media portrays disabled people in a stereotyped way
Mass media representations of disability have generally been oppressive and negative
Several common media representations of people with disabilities
In need of pity and charity
Children in Need
As victims
Children in Need
As villains
Kingsman - Secret service
As super-cripples
As having special powers or as overcoming their impairment. In films the impaired male body is
often visually represented as perfect physical specimen in a wheelchair.
Me before you
As a burdern
Love actually
As sexually abnormal
Undateables
As ordinary or normal
The media rarely portray people with disabilities as normal people who just
happen to have a disability
Gill
learned helplessness
Murugami
self construct a self-identity that accepts their impairment
Interactionism
The label 'disabled' carries with a stigma
This affects all interactions between the disabled person and others
Master status
defining characteristics by which the individual is judged