Disability, Media, and Representations

Jacob Johanssen is Senior Lecturer in Communications, St. Mary's University (London, UK). His research interests include audience research, social media, media and the body, psychoanalysis and the media, affect theory, as well as digital culture.Diana Garrisi is lecturer in journalism, Xi’An Jiaotong-Liverpool University (Suzhou, China). Her research interests include: body image and the media, rhetorical theory, cultural history and science communication.

• 1. IntroductionDiana Garrisi and Jacob Johanssen2. ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’: Representations of Disability on the Online Bulletin Board RedditLeah Burch3. Madeline Stuart as Disability Advocate and Brand: Exploring the Affective Economies of Social MediaMaria Bee Christensen-Strynø and Camilla Bruun Eriksen4. Losing Someone Like Us: Memetic Logics and Coping with Brain Tumors on Social MediaSamira Rajabi5. Re-inscribing the Feminine in Breast Cancer: Dis/Ability, Autoethnography and Black HumourRachel Velody6. Knowing North Korea through Photographing Abled/Disabled Bodies for the Western NewsMicky Lee7. Disabled Heroines: Representations of Female Disability in Japanese Television DramasAnne-Lise Mithout8. The Education of Children with Disabilities in South African Online News ReportsElizabeth Walton and Judith McKenzie9. Mass Media Use by Persons with Disabilities in Germany and Comparison with the United KingdomIngo Bosse and Annegret Haage

The international scope (spanning the US, Japan, North Korea, Germany, South Africa, and the UK) and intersectional approach to representation (i.e., representations of people with disabilities and self-representation) make this volume an important contribution to disability studies. It will be very useful in introductory disability studies classes, while it is also sophisticated enough to advance scholarship and clarify thought in the field. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty.J. L. Croissant, University of Arizona, USARepresentations of disability in media are densely layered phenomena, extending far beyond a screen. This collection gives nuanced attention to the accessibility, contexts, and tropes of disability representations around the world. It enriches what we think we know, and points to areas in which students and scholars of disability and media alike could—and should—know more.Assistant Professor Elizabeth Ellcessor, Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia, USAThis exciting, timely and readable text brings together established and emerging scholars to seek connections and, as importantly, reveal tensions between media and disability studies. The centrality of the body as a subject and object of analysis means that this book will be of interest to readers from a myriad of disciplines across the human and social sciences, arts and humanities.Professor Dan Goodley, iHuman, University of Sheffield, UK