Valuing Disability: Economies of Visibility, Paralympic Cripvertising and the Disabled Body Politic

Authors: Pullen, E. and Silk, M.

Pages: 177-194

DOI: 10.4324/9781315673929-11

Abstract:

The Paralympic spectacle is now one of the most visible and celebrated sites of disability representation in popular culture and has been an important vehicle for stimulating wider forms of disability representation across the media industries. This chapter discusses the ways contemporary Paralympic media cultures have developed to shape new disability mediated landscapes, inclusionary politics, and emergent openings for disability re-presentations. The central argument is that (new) parasport media cultures and economies are carving out spaces that can lead to progressive social change, yet such spaces remain haunted, and oft negated, by intersecting vectors of race, gender, nation and neoliberal ableism (Pullen et al., 2018; 2019; Pullen & Silk, 2020).

Source: Scopus