Archive for September 2013

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[ecrea] Call for chapter proposals: Routledge edited collection on the media and Paralympics

Sat Sep 21 07:53:33 GMT 2013



We are seeking two chapters for an edited collection on the media and the 2012 Paralympics, which will be published by Routledge in 2014.

The opportunity has arisen due to two of our authors having to drop out.

If interested, please send an approx 500 word abstract to Dan Jackson (jacksond /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk) by 14 October 2013 at the latest.

The chapter deadlines for information are below, and anyone interested would need to commit to these.

Friday 17 Jan 2014 - deadline for draft of your chapter
Friday 7 Feb 2014 - deadline for final chapter, incorporating editor comments.

Further information about the collection can be found below. We would not expect authors to link to all of these themes and we are open to studies looking at disability beyond the Paralympics.. I'm happy to have an informal chat about your prospective chapter should you have any questions.


Provisional title: Reframing disability? Media, (dis)empowerment and voice in the London Paralympics Edited by Daniel Jackson, Caroline Hodges, Mike Molesworth and Richard Scullion
Routledge, 2014


The 2012 Paralympics was the biggest ever, the most accessible and best attended in its 64-year history. In the UK it received media publicity and reportage on an unprecedented scale. The Paralympics and ideas of disability associated with the Games provide significant opportunity for reflection on how far societal opinions, attitudes and behaviour have changed regarding disability. In 2012 - the first ever “legacy games” - an explicit aim of the Paralympics was to “transform the perception of disabled people in society”, (Channel 4), and use sport to contribute to “a better world for all people with a disability” (IPC 2011 in Purdue & Howe 2011, p. 7). The 2012 Games therefore came with a social agenda: to challenge the current perceptions many people have about disability and disability sport. It offered the potential to re-frame disability; to symbolically challenge ‘ableist’ ideology; to offer “a reinvention of the (dis)abled body and a redefinition of the possible”
(Hargreaves, 2000, p. 199).
In this book we investigate what has and is happening in relation to these grand ambitions. In the past, the media (both sports broadcasters and news organisations) have been criticised for the lack of Paralympics coverage, and for narratives that focus on patronising portrayals of brave, elite athletes who overcome their disability. As has been suggested by earlier studies of media and disability, such media representations fit well within the established power relations, which oppress disabled people in society. Our book will ask what were the predominant narratives surrounding the Paralympics, and what are the associated meanings attached to this? It will offer a number of perspectives in answering these questions:

- What were the key challenges broadcasters faced in covering the Paralympics, and how did they respond to them?

- What was the predominant imagery, narratives and meanings associated with the Paralympics in media coverage?

- What narratives did news organisations favour in their coverage of the Paralympics? How did these narratives compare to the concurrent news coverage of welfare reform in 2012?

- What messages did the promotional communications for the Paralympics (and associated sponsors) tell us about the role of disability in society?

- Did the Paralympics inspire a more general shift in representation of disabled people in popular culture?

The second theme of the book begins to unpack the impact and legacy of the 2012 Paralympics. In this section we ask how was the Paralympics experienced by media audiences (both disabled and non-disabled)? Historically, elite disability sport has struggled for the public’s attention and acceptance as ‘elite’. Summer 2012 brought an opportunity to challenge societal views of disability and disability sport. We ask whether and to what extent any process of transformation was experienced. We bring particular focus to the lived experiences of disability, and how disability was negotiated in the lifeworld of both non-disabled and disabled people. Chapters will consider:

- How did the 2012 Paralympics change the way that people view elite disability sport?

- How did the 2012 Paralympics change the way that people perceive disability in everyday life?

- What emotions did watching the 2012 Paralympics evoke amongst audiences?

- What frames of reference did audiences refer to when experiencing engaging with disability and the Paralympics?


The third theme of the book looks more closely at whether the 2012 Paralympics inspired social change, especially for disabled people. Although the Paralympic Games have been widely understood and promoted as potentially empowering for athletes and disabled people in society, the empowerment of these populations still needs to be critically examined. Contributions will assess:

- How did elite athletes with a disability experience the 2012 Paralympics with respect to the dominant IPC and media narratives surrounding disability sport?

- How was the (seemingly) overwhelming positivity of the Olympics and Paralympics experienced by those disabled people who were simultaneously experiencing everyday challenges such as facing cuts to their disability benefits?

- How did disabled people identify with the dominant Paralympic narratives?

- Did the Paralympics give a sense of empowerment to disabled people, and how was this manifest?

Each section of this book will be interspersed with ‘voices’ from outside academia: from the broadcasters, athletes, volunteers and disabled schoolchildren. The authentic voices from the disabled community come from students at Victoria Education Centre in Poole, Dorset – a residential and day school offering care, therapy and education for young disabled people from 3-19 years old. All students have physical disabilities or complex medical conditions and many have additional needs including communication difficulties, learning difficulties and sensory impairments. The students’ contributions will be in the form of poetry, creative writing and comic strips. The aim of bringing in voices from outside the academy is to tell a story of the media and disability in the context of the 2012 Paralympics from a number of perspectives: to document some of the inspirational stories and to shine a light into some of the cracks that lay beneath the exterior.




Dr.  Dan Jackson
Senior  Lecturer in Media and Communications
Deputy Programme  Co-ordinator, BA Public Relations
The Media  School
Bournemouth  University
W410  Weymouth House
Talbot  Campus
01202  961297
(jacksond /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)
@dan_jackson9


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