Semester 1, academic year 2024/2025
By Wenwen Guo
Currently, there are an estimated 1.3 billion (16%) of the global population experiencing significant disability (WHO, 2024). However, most disabled people remain unheard and under-represented: Research on the disabled group in the Paralympic Games have only begun to receive attention in the past 20 years (Jefferies et al., 2012), even within the limited reach, most of them depicts impairment features instead of athlete achievements and performance (Auslander & Gold, 1999; Hardin & Hardin, 2004; Schantz & Gilbert, 2001), resulting in biases and passive misunderstandings on this marginalized group.
The Paralympic Games provides an open platform for worldwide athletes with various types of disabilities to unite and compete to their body limits (Rojas-Torrijos & Ramon, 2021). The game aims to promote inclusion and awareness on the disabled population, emphasize the athletic achievements of marginalized groups worldwide, and motivate achievement and persistence for all (Ersöz & Esen, 2023). The event is also actively reported on media outlets in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and China (Boykoff, 2024; Solves et al., 2019). Reports are widely seen on the Washington Post (Lee, 2013), BBC (Buysse & Borcherding, 2010; Lee, 2013; Pullen & Silk, 2020), CBC (Antunovic et al., 2024; Quinn & Yoshida, 2016), and China Daily (Buysse & Borcherding, 2010; Cheong et al., 2021). These reports reflect the widespread interest of professional news outlets and policy makers on the international disability issue and their aims to frame public opinion through their wide reach of audience.
DePauw (1997) introduced three frames for representing marginalized groups in sport reporting, namely physicality, masculinity, and sexuality. This study investigates the existence of the above-mentioned frames on four professional news outlets (from US, UK, Canada, and China) when reporting the disabled groups in the Paralympic games. The study uses an automated content analysis method to answer framing differences across different games and countries, and the moderating role of countries acting as hosts.