3. Content analysis: Key findings

3.1 What proportion of television and radio programming contain representations of people with disabilities?

This question examined the percentage of programming featuring appearances by individuals with a disability as defined above (i.e. who were physically present or who were referred to (i.e. "represented") at length).

67 programmes out of a total of 804 (8%) programmes in the sample featured at least one person with a disability. As the table below shows, 39 of these were television programmes and 28 were radio programmes.

Since only 47% of the programme sample were television programmes (374 programmes), the fact that 58% of programmes featuring a person with a disability were television programmes shows that such individuals were significantly more likely to evidently appear on television than on radio.

Amongst television programmes, 10% (39 programmes) featured a person with a disability as compared to 6.5% (28%) of radio programming.

Figure 1: Percentage of television and radio programming containing representations of people with disabilities by media type

It is important to stress that the difference in numbers of representations between radio and television may be due to the greater difficulty in discerning the presence of a person with a disability on radio in the absence of visual cues. This is particularly so for people with physical and sensory disabilities. On television, a person with a physical impairment may be identified by the presence of a walking aid or wheelchair. The same individual would not appear disabled to a radio audience unless attention was explicitly called to this fact. This should be borne in mind as the reader progresses through the report.

3.2 What proportion of television and radio programming contain spoken references to disability?

This question identified the percentage of programming which included verbal "references" to disability and impairment but did not feature an actual person with a disability in a programme.

In addition to the 8% of programmes which featured a person or persons with a disability, a further 12% (95 programmes) made solely spoken references (i.e. discussed) disability. These spoken references were more or less evenly split between television (which accounted for 48 programmes with references) and radio (47 programmes with references). Several programmes featured a large range of distinct references: the 95 programmes referred to included 108 spoken references in total.

However, bearing in mind that radio programmes accounted for 53% of the total programme sample, it remained the case that spoken references were marginally more likely to feature on television than on radio: 13% of all television programmes featured a spoken reference (56 actual references) compared to 11% (52 actual references) of all radio programmes.

Figure 3 - Proportion of television and radio programming referring to disability by media type

3.3 What proportion of all people sampled on television and radio programming had a disability?

This question sought both to count the number of people with disabilities who appeared (i.e. either in person or through being referred to) in radio and television programmes sampled and to quantify the significance of their appearance in relation to the overall programme sample.

People with disabilities accounted for 1.1% of people appearing in the total programme sample. The coders counted 7,223 individuals in total within the programme sample and 88 of these were identified as people with disabilities. 51 of these appeared on television and 37 on radio. Of the 5,011 individuals recorded by the researchers as appearing on television, 51 (or 1%) were identified as having a disability. For radio, people with disabilities accounted for 37 (or 1.8%) of the total of 2,212 people who featured. Given that people with a disability and spoken references to disability were more likely to appear on television, it is interesting to note that apparent people with disabilities constituted a higher proportion of the radio population than of the television population.

Figure 4 - People with disabilities as a percentage of all individuals appearing in sample

3.4 What proportion of programming is disability-focussed and what proportion is mainstream?

This question examined the difference between programmes aimed at a general audience (mainstream) and those aimed at a specific audience (disability-focussed). 5 of the 804 programmes (or 0.6% of the total) were specifically focussed on disability. On the television side these were made up of 3 News Bulletins for the Deaf (i.e. with Irish Sign Language) on RTÉ. On the radio side, two community stations were responsible for the remaining 2 disability-focused programmes. These were "Capability" (a programme from Ros FM) and "Equality Time" on NEAR FM. In addition, 1 mainstream show in the sample was considered to have been mainly focused on disability: 1 edition of "The Business" on RTÉ Radio 1, focused on the question of running Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) schools which offer one-to-one tuition for autistic children.

3.5 How many different people/characters (in the case of fictional/dramatic content) contribute to the representation of people with disabilities?

Taking the frequent appearances of some individuals during programmes examined into account, 72 separate individuals accounted for the 88 recorded appearances of people with disabilities. Cho, Seung-Hui, the so-called "Virginia Tech" shooter, for example, accounted for 11 appearances across 11 separate programmes.

In addition, the research identified 5 programmes featuring groups of people with disabilities where it was not possible to count the size of the group. For example, the edition of RTÉ Radio 1's "The Business" programme which included an item on ABA schooling featured an unspecified number of children with autism in the background.

3.6 In which genres of programmes are people with disabilities most and least often represented?

This question broke down into two separate but related questions. Firstly, this question categorised the appearances of the 88 people with disabilities according to the genre of programme they appeared in across both radio and television e.g. News/Current Affairs, Drama etc. Four programme genres accounted for the vast majority (88%) of all appearances by people with disabilities across radio and television. They are in descending order:

1. News/Current Affairs (32%)
2. Lifestyle (22%)
3. Drama (19%)
4. Comedy (15%)

Six genres accounted for the remaining 12% of appearances by people with disabilities: Music (1%), Sports (1%), Movies/Mini-Series (1%), Other, (1%), Factual (4%) and Young People's (4%).

Figure 5: Appearances of people with disabilities by programme genre

However, this did not necessarily reveal much about the extent to which particular genres focused on people with disabilities. This was because those programme genres which were most prevalent in the programme sample as a whole would almost inevitably feature more appearances by people with a disability. For example, since news and current affairs accounted for 45% of all programmes in the sample, it was unsurprising that it accounted for the largest percentage of appearances by people with disabilities.

Given this, the question addressed a second issue: which programme genres were most/least likely to feature people with disabilities? i.e. if one was to watch an hour of each genre within the sample, in which genres was one most/least likely to encounter a person with a disability? This produced quite different results to the first question.^[4]

In this context, one is most likely to encounter people with disabilities in the comedy genre, followed by drama and then lifestyle programming. By contrast one is least likely to encounter people with disabilities in music programmes, followed by sports and then - strikingly given its earlier prominence - news and current affairs. ^[5]

Television and Radio

The spread (distribution) of people with disabilities across programme genres is not surprisingly very different in radio and television given the predominance of certain programme genres on radio compared to television. More specifically, although all the programme genres used in the research are well represented on television, radio is dominated by music, news/current affairs and lifestyle programming which account for 87% of all radio programmes in the sample. The implications of this are outlined below.

Figure 6: Distribution of people with disabilities across genres - Television

Figure 7: Distribution of people with disabilities across genres - Radio

As the pie charts above indicate, four genres - drama, comedy, news/current affairs and lifestyle - account for 81% of all television appearances of people with disabilities. Drama and comedy in particular dominate television, accounting in total for 55% of all screen representations of people with disability (despite the fact that the two genres together account for only 30% of the 374 television shows in the overall programme sample). In radio, however, 88% of appearances by people with disabilities occurred in just two genres: news/current affairs and lifestyle shows (and more specifically phone-in and magazine shows).

Both genres - news/current affairs and lifestyle - are also found on television. However, on television, they play a far less significant role in representing people with disability than the genres of comedy and drama. However, the prevalence of news/current and lifestyle in radio representations of people with disability reflects their prevalence in the overall radio sample where the two genres account in total for 73% of all radio shows (news/current affairs 60% and lifestyle 13%). Although music programming accounts for 14% of all the radio shows in the sample, it accounts for just 4% of the radio appearances of people with disabilities.

3.7 In which genres of programmes do references to disability appear most and least often?

This question adopted a similar approach to that asked in section 3.6 but was limited to references to disability (i.e. when a person with a disability was neither present nor referred to).

Figure 8: Reference to disability by programme genres

As with appearances of people with disabilities, four genres account for the vast majority (82%) of all shows on radio and television which only refer to disability and which do not include appearances by people with a disability. They are:

• News/Current Affairs (39%)
• Lifestyle (19%)
• Comedy (13%).
• Drama (11%)

The remaining 18% is accounted for by

• Sports (1%)
• Young People's (2%)
• Music (3%)
• Other (3%)
• Factual (5%)
• Movies/Mini-Series (4%)

Television and Radio

The spread (distribution) of references among programme genres differs across television and radio. Again this apparently results from differences in the spread of genres across the two media. More specifically, although all the programme genres used in the research are well represented on television, radio is dominated by music, news/current affairs and lifestyle programming which account for 87% of all radio programmes in the sample. The implications of this are outlined below.

Figure 9: Reference to disability by programme genres: television and radio comparison.

It is immediately evident that although references to disability occur in all genres on television, in radio just three genres account for virtually all (98%) of disability references. News/current affairs accounted for 62% of all radio references, lifestyle programmes accounted for 30% with music accounting for a further 6%. A single radio reference categorised as "Other" accounts for the remaining 2%. The fact that these genres account for virtually all radio references to disability reflect the fact that such genres dominate radio schedules. This is not to suggest that references to disability are evenly spread across television genres, however. Four genres - comedy (25%), drama (21%), news/current affairs (17%) and factual (10%) - account for nearly three-quarters of all television references to disability.

In terms of the likelihood of references to disability occurring in a particular programme genre, references to people with disabilities were more evenly spread across genres than actual appearances of people with disabilities.^[6] Nonetheless, the contrasts between the programme genres remain stark. References to disability are most likely to feature in comedy programmes followed by movies/mini-series and then lifestyle programmes. References are least likely to appear in sports, music, and young people's programming (in that order).

It is also notable that two of the genres which were respectively more and less likely to feature people with disabilities - Drama and News/Current Affairs- are not significantly more or less likely to feature references to disability.

3.8 In programmes that represent people with disabilities, what is the level of appearance of the person/people with disabilities?

In order to assess the significance of the role/contribution of people with disabilities in a given programme, the research examined whether the appearance of a person with a disability in a programme was major, minor or incidental. Appearances across both broadcast media were categorised as major, minor or incidental by applying a combination of four criteria relating to:

• the amount of on-screen time featuring a given character
• the amount of speech/dialogue spoken by a given character
• that character's role in developing the narrative, and
• the extent of character development (although this largely applies to fiction)

Figure 10: Distribution of individuals with disabilities by significance of role.

The research found that in the 67 programmes featuring people with a disability on radio and television, 27 people with disabilities played major roles, 52 played minor roles and 9 were merely incidental. In other words, 69% of all representations were minor or incidental with the remaining 31% categorised as major.

Television and Radio

There were also stark differences in the roles played by people with disabilities on radio and television.

Figure 11: Distribution of individuals with disabilities by significance of role - Television

Figure 12: Distribution of individuals with disabilities by significance of role - Radio

Television representations of disability were much more likely to feature people with disabilities in major roles: 41% of those featured on television occupied major roles as compared with just 16% on radio. Furthermore, fully four-fifths (81%) of those appearing on radio were categorised as playing minor roles whereas on television the figure was only 43%.

3.9 What types of disability are represented?

The research categorised the conditions of all the individuals with disability using specific descriptions available (e.g. cystic fibrosis, schizophrenia, gambling addiction etc.) and then grouped them under pre-defined headings referring to categories of disability: Vision, Hearing, Physical Impairment, Mental Health, Learning Disability and Other. The categorising allowed for the possibility that a single individual might experience several forms of disability simultaneously. Thus, although there were only 88 individuals with disabilities identified by the research, they accounted for 93 incidences of disability. In terms of specific conditions, depression is the most commonly represented form of disability on radio and television (19 or 21% of the appearances represented depression), followed by autism (11 appearances or 12%) and addiction (9 appearances or 10%).

Looking at disability in more general terms, all of the pre-defined headings listed above were represented to a greater or lesser degree. The chart below outlines the relative prominence of different types of disability.

Figure 13: Distribution of people with disabilities by type of disability

Mental health clearly dominates with 32 instances (34%) of representations of mental health in the total programme sample. It is important to note that a third of all instances of representations of persons with a mental health condition were accounted for by news reporting on a single individual (Cho, Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter). Learning disability (15 instances or 16% of the total) was the second largest category, followed by physical disability (14 instances or 16%) and "Other" (also 14 instances or 16%). Addiction, vision and hearing disabilities accounted for 10%, 8% and 2% of the sample respectively.

Television and Radio

Figure 14: Distribution of people with disabilities by type of disability - Television

Figure 15: Distribution of people with disabilities by type of disability - Radio

In contemplating the distinctions in the range of disability types across radio and television, it needs to be borne in mind that physical/sensory disabilities are less apparent on radio. For example, coders noted the presence of six people on one radio show on NEAR FM, "Equality Time". However, although all six people were clearly identified as disabled during the programme there was no explicit or implied description of the nature of their disabilities. Physical impairments accounted for 22% (or 12 instances) of all those represented in the television element of the sample, but only 7% of those (or 2 instances) in the radio element.

In the case of representations of mental health across both media: representations of individuals with mental health issues accounted for 27% (or 15 instances) of all the disabilities coded on television and 22% of all disabilities coded on radio.

3.10 How does the representation occur? (i.e. stereotyped etc,.)

This question was examined using of the following subsidiary questions:-

1. the tone of references to persons with a disability present on a show (i.e. whether light-hearted or serious);
2. the extent to which representations of people with disabilities fell into pre-defined stereotypical categories (outlined below), and;
3. whether the programme had a neutral, prejudicial or discriminatory approach to the representation of people with disabilities.

3.10.1 Programme Tone

This question sought to establish the tone applied to particular representations of individuals with disabilities, regardless of the genre of the programme featuring the representation or the broadcast media involved (radio or television). The object of the question was to identify whether there was a particular tone associated with representations of disability. Though one might anticipate that a sitcom would adopt a comedic tone in dealing with a person with a disability, this is not necessarily the case. Furthermore, magazine-style programming such as "The Tubridy Show" on RTÉ Radio 1 may adopt a wide variety of tones depending on the subject of a given programme item.

Figure 16: Programme tone with regard to representations of individuals with a disability

For the most part (76% of instances) the tone adopted with regard to a person with a disability is categorised as "serious". In only 22% of overall cases is a light or comedic tone adopted. This was particularly true of appearances by a person with a disability on radio, as the section below outlines.

Television and Radio

Figure 17: Programme tone with regard to representations of individuals with a disability: a comparison of television and radio

92% of radio representations were characterised by a "serious" tone whereas none of the radio representations were considered comedic. In this respect it should be recalled that the comedy genre is almost entirely absent from Irish radio. A lighter approach was far more likely to be encountered on television, where 32% of appearances by people with disability were categorised as "comedic" or "light". Notwithstanding this finding, even on television, 65% of representations were regarded as being characterised by a "serious" tone. Interestingly, the likelihood of a serious tone was also far greater with regard to references to disability, as the chart below indicates.

Figure 18: Programme tone with regard to references to disability

Figure 19: Programme tone with regard to references to disability - television and radio comparison

Nearly 40% of all references to disability were coded as comedic or light. However, there was again a difference between radio and television with radio taking a notably more serious tone. Of the 52 references to disability on radio, all but one (i.e. 99%) were characterised as "serious" whereas only 27% of references to disability on television were similarly categorised. Indeed, on television 73% of references were coded as "comedy" (34%) or light (39%).

3.10.2 Stereotyping

With regard to stereotyping, we should note that researchers were able to assign the representation of individuals with disabilities to more than one of the eleven stereotype categories employed in the research. Hence, although there were 88 individuals with disabilities in the programme sample, the researchers noted 119 instances of stereotyping. In 23 of the 88 representations (26% of the total), no stereotype was noted. The stereotype categories were:

• Pitiable and pathetic; sweet and innocent; a miracle cure
• Victim or an object of violence
• Sinister or evil
• Faking injury; lazy
• Atmosphere - curios or exotica
• 'Super-crip'/ triumph over tragedy/noble warrior^[7]
• Laughable or the butt of jokes
• Having a chip on their shoulder/ aggressive avenger
• A burden/ outcast
• Non-sexual or incapable of a worthwhile relationship
• Incapable of fully participating in everyday life

Figure 20: Incidences of stereotyped representations

The bulk of the stereotypes can be grouped into two categories: 41 instances portrayed individuals with disabilities as either sinister or aggressive (35% of all of the applications of the stereotype category). A further 45 were categorised as pitiable, victims or burdens (38% all of the applications of the stereotype category). These figures should be treated with some caution, however, for reasons which are discussed in more detail in section 4.9.3 below.

Television and Radio

With regard to comparisons of stereotyping across broadcast media, it is notable that 11 of the 51 people with disabilities (or 22%) that appeared in the television sample were regarded as non-stereotyped. By contrast 12 out of 37 (32%) of the people with disabilities on radio were categorised as non-stereotyped.

Figure 21: Incidence of stereotyped representations: television and radio comparisons

Of the 119 examples of stereotyping in the sample as a whole, 65 of these were television representations of disability and 54 were radio representations of disability. At a glance, the chart above suggests a number of significant differences: perhaps most obvious is the large number of representations (43 in total) categorised as "sinister", "aggressive" or "burden/outcast" on radio as compared with television. However, once again, Cho, Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter - who's activities were reported on in news bulletin after news bulletin by RTÉ Radio 1 - accounts for nearly all (39 of the 43) of these categorisations. However, since the sample did not include television material from the same day, it cannot be safely concluded that radio representations in general are more likely to adopt such stereotypes in representing people with disabilities. However, the results show that television representations are significantly more likely to represent people with disabilities as "pitiable", "victims" or "unable to participate". Even allowing for the fact that there were more incidences of categorisation as stereotyped on television than radio overall, it is notable that 33 of the 65 (i.e. 51%) incidences of categorisation on television fell into one of the three categories referred to immediately above. By contrast, on radio only 7 of the 54 (i.e. 13%) incidences of categorisation applied the "pitiable", "victims" or "unable to participate" stereotype.

3.10.3 Prejudicial/Discriminatory Approach.

The third element of section 3.10 asked whether particular representations of people with disabilities could be categorised as "prejudicial" or "discriminatory" (or neither and therefore neutral). The terms "prejudice" and "discrimination" are sometimes used interchangeably but there is a distinction. Prejudice refers to a tendency to pre-judge a particular individual or group unfairly. Prejudice may be passive, however, and does not necessarily lead to discrimination which refers to the actual unequal treatment of an individual or group on the basis of some aspect of their identity, be it gender, race, ability/disability etc.

As a basis for categorising representations of disability, however, such categories are difficult to use in practice. Therefore, the question sought to identify instances where a programme encouraged negative attitudes towards all people with disability (which was identified as prejudice) and instances where a programme encouraged negative attitudes towards a particular individual (discrimination). In practice, however, such distinctions are hard to maintain and the significant findings from this question related to whether a particular programme was, on the one hand, neutral towards a person or persons with a disability or, on the other hand prejudiced and/or discriminatory towards such individuals. As a result, the majority of appearances by people with disabilities and references to disability were not coded as either discriminatory or prejudicial.

Figure 22: Relative prominence of neutral, prejudicial or discriminatory approaches to the representation of people with disabilities.

Figure 23: Relative prominence of neutral, prejudicial or discriminatory approaches to references to disability