thanks Warwick that was that was a
promotion I wasn’t expecting I want to
thank everyone for this opportunity what
brings me here is the collision of
worlds really my worlds collide they
collided I was a journalist and I’m now
a journalism educator and a media
researcher and at the heart of that
collision I suppose really was the
arrival of my son our son Mac who came
to be 14 weeks early he was about 500
grams so that’s if you imagine that’s
about the size of a block of butter
maybe spread a little more thinly and he
got through his prematurity I suppose in
two degrees pretty well but then that’s
let’s just say there were events and he
now has an acquired brain injury and
severe cerebral palsy and what that did
was a disability came knocking
disability not only came knocking but it
came kind of charging through the door
and it reminded me that I liken it to
the game that maybe some of you would
have played when you were kids maybe not
so much now called punch buggy
it’s that game where you’re sitting in
the back see notice in the backseat with
my brothers and we’d be driving and the
challenge was to spot the first yellow
Volkswagen and whoever got to spot it
got to deliver the first punch for the
arm of the person sitting next to them
now despite the kind of innate violence
embedded in the game it did do something
I’d actually raised awareness
now because once you’ve spotted the
first one you just couldn’t help but see
yellow hunch buggies everywhere so
they’re like fists flying left right and
center
and disability is like that until you
see it clearly for the first time you
don’t really see it but when you see it
when it comes knocking on your door you
can’t help but see it everywhere and
that shouldn’t be a surprise to any of
us it really shouldn’t be a surprise to
any of us one in five Australians
twenty-five people worldwide according
to the World Health Organization
identify as being disabled or having a
disability so that’s a lot of doors
being knocked on and that’s a lot of
stories being told and that’s what
brings me here I now research the way
people with disability are represented
in news media particularly Australian
news media at the moment and that’s that
collision of worlds I use some models
that were designed by researchers klog
stone and the Heller in the early to mid
90s as kind of my guide like my
underpinning tool for a lot of the work
that I do those models inform the way I
go about looking at media coverage and
representation of people with disability
they had a couple of key areas
overarching frames if you like
so those one was traditional and one was
progressive the traditional models
really centered around those medical
representations the idea that disability
or impairment is something that needs to
be fixed and that’s social and the
social pathology model that really is
that charity and disability is a sorry
disability
is really a charity frame or a pity
frame or something that society needs to
look after those poor people and then
you know within the progressive frame
you see more more of a focus on say
civil rights or human rights and even
that idea of legal rights where people
with impairment and disability stand up
and take their own legal livelihoods in
their hands and and cause action for
themselves so those frames are what
Clarkston and Haller identified and I
use them in my research even today
looking in Australia at the National
Disability Insurance Scheme and I look
at are these models still present and it
is quite interesting that and despite
that passage of time we really do still
see those traditional frames of
disability representative now news also
see those frames of of hero and tragedy
really something that is embedded in
those traditional frames particularly
that social pathology model so we get
the heroes and we get the tragic and we
also get the inspirational still a young
former journalist editor commentator
comedian activist the late Stella young
we lost her a couple years ago delivered
a very well-known TED talk where she
spoke about something called inspiration
porn and I and and I look closely at
that concept to within my research and
that idea of heroism being embedded in
courage for what really are questionable
reasons still put it pretty well when
she saw what she put very well when she
said I’m not your inspiration thank you
very much and she was talking about that
idea that people with disability are
somehow here
for doing the everyday for getting a job
getting an education and sometimes
celebrated for getting out of bed those
frames that appear within our news
coverage and within online conversations
that is what the challenge is that is
where we need to look very closely and
what it is that is representing people
with disability
Stella wanted us to think about that
when she spoke about inspiration porn
and I look at that and those hero models
in those tragic models within Australian
news media coverage and it is
interesting because despite that time
despite the conversation being not going
on for as long as it has they are still
very present and present to the degree
that they are almost daily where people
with impairment are celebrated and
putting new into news stories within a
frame of charity within a frame of being
a hero because they’ve got a job or
because they tried to get a haircut very
recently a story appeared that basically
said look at the barber trying who has
done such a great thing he’s this person
who needed he wanted his haircut who
couldn’t access the barbershop was taken
outside and given the haircut by the
very charitable a hairdresser and this
is not a criticism of the hairdresser at
all
this is simply to say that that frame of
charity and pity that was put on that
person who was trying to get a haircut
was all wrong the frame around that
story should have been about civil
rights should have been about human
rights
rather than this sort of frame that
celebrated the barber and really ignored
the person who was trying to get their
haircut wasn’t even featured in the
story
no no voice being present and the same
when you have representations of people
who with impairment getting jobs and
celebrated because they get jobs if
that’s the frame we want to put around
stories than we are wrong it needs to be
challenged because that sort of a why
aren’t people with disability getting
jobs these are the questions the social
model of disability is key to this the
social model of disability says that
disability is a construct impairment is
present in our society impairment in an
ageing and growing population is going
to be more and more something that and
in our entire communities will deal with
physical cognitive intellectual
disability and the social model says
that if a society does not acknowledge
and do anything about impairment or try
to work to create an inclusive subject
than they are very much creating
disability so we need to move beyond
that we need to move beyond and the good
news is change is happening change is
happening that story about the barber
acknowledged publicly a news story we
got it wrong we could have done better
we will do better that’s all dogs
learning new tricks doing things better
and leading by example and all power to
that publication it was a human rights
story it wasn’t a charity story so
here’s the challenge for journalists as
agender setters for people who can say
this is important this is how we should
do this and this issue this story could
be done better it could be done with a
more significant angle rather than those
comfortable hero and tragic
they need to see disability as part of
the human fabric as part of the tapestry
of humanity a thread that connects
rather than segregates thank you [Applause]
promotion I wasn’t expecting I want to
thank everyone for this opportunity what
brings me here is the collision of
worlds really my worlds collide they
collided I was a journalist and I’m now
a journalism educator and a media
researcher and at the heart of that
collision I suppose really was the
arrival of my son our son Mac who came
to be 14 weeks early he was about 500
grams so that’s if you imagine that’s
about the size of a block of butter
maybe spread a little more thinly and he
got through his prematurity I suppose in
two degrees pretty well but then that’s
let’s just say there were events and he
now has an acquired brain injury and
severe cerebral palsy and what that did
was a disability came knocking
disability not only came knocking but it
came kind of charging through the door
and it reminded me that I liken it to
the game that maybe some of you would
have played when you were kids maybe not
so much now called punch buggy
it’s that game where you’re sitting in
the back see notice in the backseat with
my brothers and we’d be driving and the
challenge was to spot the first yellow
Volkswagen and whoever got to spot it
got to deliver the first punch for the
arm of the person sitting next to them
now despite the kind of innate violence
embedded in the game it did do something
I’d actually raised awareness
now because once you’ve spotted the
first one you just couldn’t help but see
yellow hunch buggies everywhere so
they’re like fists flying left right and
center
and disability is like that until you
see it clearly for the first time you
don’t really see it but when you see it
when it comes knocking on your door you
can’t help but see it everywhere and
that shouldn’t be a surprise to any of
us it really shouldn’t be a surprise to
any of us one in five Australians
twenty-five people worldwide according
to the World Health Organization
identify as being disabled or having a
disability so that’s a lot of doors
being knocked on and that’s a lot of
stories being told and that’s what
brings me here I now research the way
people with disability are represented
in news media particularly Australian
news media at the moment and that’s that
collision of worlds I use some models
that were designed by researchers klog
stone and the Heller in the early to mid
90s as kind of my guide like my
underpinning tool for a lot of the work
that I do those models inform the way I
go about looking at media coverage and
representation of people with disability
they had a couple of key areas
overarching frames if you like
so those one was traditional and one was
progressive the traditional models
really centered around those medical
representations the idea that disability
or impairment is something that needs to
be fixed and that’s social and the
social pathology model that really is
that charity and disability is a sorry
disability
is really a charity frame or a pity
frame or something that society needs to
look after those poor people and then
you know within the progressive frame
you see more more of a focus on say
civil rights or human rights and even
that idea of legal rights where people
with impairment and disability stand up
and take their own legal livelihoods in
their hands and and cause action for
themselves so those frames are what
Clarkston and Haller identified and I
use them in my research even today
looking in Australia at the National
Disability Insurance Scheme and I look
at are these models still present and it
is quite interesting that and despite
that passage of time we really do still
see those traditional frames of
disability representative now news also
see those frames of of hero and tragedy
really something that is embedded in
those traditional frames particularly
that social pathology model so we get
the heroes and we get the tragic and we
also get the inspirational still a young
former journalist editor commentator
comedian activist the late Stella young
we lost her a couple years ago delivered
a very well-known TED talk where she
spoke about something called inspiration
porn and I and and I look closely at
that concept to within my research and
that idea of heroism being embedded in
courage for what really are questionable
reasons still put it pretty well when
she saw what she put very well when she
said I’m not your inspiration thank you
very much and she was talking about that
idea that people with disability are
somehow here
for doing the everyday for getting a job
getting an education and sometimes
celebrated for getting out of bed those
frames that appear within our news
coverage and within online conversations
that is what the challenge is that is
where we need to look very closely and
what it is that is representing people
with disability
Stella wanted us to think about that
when she spoke about inspiration porn
and I look at that and those hero models
in those tragic models within Australian
news media coverage and it is
interesting because despite that time
despite the conversation being not going
on for as long as it has they are still
very present and present to the degree
that they are almost daily where people
with impairment are celebrated and
putting new into news stories within a
frame of charity within a frame of being
a hero because they’ve got a job or
because they tried to get a haircut very
recently a story appeared that basically
said look at the barber trying who has
done such a great thing he’s this person
who needed he wanted his haircut who
couldn’t access the barbershop was taken
outside and given the haircut by the
very charitable a hairdresser and this
is not a criticism of the hairdresser at
all
this is simply to say that that frame of
charity and pity that was put on that
person who was trying to get a haircut
was all wrong the frame around that
story should have been about civil
rights should have been about human
rights
rather than this sort of frame that
celebrated the barber and really ignored
the person who was trying to get their
haircut wasn’t even featured in the
story
no no voice being present and the same
when you have representations of people
who with impairment getting jobs and
celebrated because they get jobs if
that’s the frame we want to put around
stories than we are wrong it needs to be
challenged because that sort of a why
aren’t people with disability getting
jobs these are the questions the social
model of disability is key to this the
social model of disability says that
disability is a construct impairment is
present in our society impairment in an
ageing and growing population is going
to be more and more something that and
in our entire communities will deal with
physical cognitive intellectual
disability and the social model says
that if a society does not acknowledge
and do anything about impairment or try
to work to create an inclusive subject
than they are very much creating
disability so we need to move beyond
that we need to move beyond and the good
news is change is happening change is
happening that story about the barber
acknowledged publicly a news story we
got it wrong we could have done better
we will do better that’s all dogs
learning new tricks doing things better
and leading by example and all power to
that publication it was a human rights
story it wasn’t a charity story so
here’s the challenge for journalists as
agender setters for people who can say
this is important this is how we should
do this and this issue this story could
be done better it could be done with a
more significant angle rather than those
comfortable hero and tragic
they need to see disability as part of
the human fabric as part of the tapestry
of humanity a thread that connects
rather than segregates thank you [Applause]
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