Routledge Research in Disability and Media Studies – serie

This book explores the opportunities and challenges people with disabilities experience in the context of digital games from the perspective of three related areas: representation, access and inclusion, and community.Drawing on key concerns in disability media studies, the book brings together scholars from disability studies and game studies, alongside game developers, educators, and disability rights activists, to reflect upon the increasing visibility of disabled characters in digital games. Chapters explore the contemporary gaming environment as it relates to disability on platforms such as Twitch, Minecraft, and Tingyou, while also addressing future possibilities and pitfalls for people with disabilities within gaming given the rise of virtual reality applications, and augmented games such as Pokémon Go. The book asks how game developers can attempt to represent diverse abilities, taking games such as BlindSide and Overwatch as examples.A significant collection for scholars and students interested in the critical analysis of digital games, this volume will be of interest across several disciplines including game studies, game design and development, internet, visual, cultural, communication and media studies, as well as disability studies.

Disability and Digital Television Cultures offers an important addition to scholarly studies at the intersection of disability and media, examining disability in the context of digital television access, representation and reception.Television, as a central medium of communication, has marginalized people with disability through both representation on screen and the lack of accessibility to this medium. With accessibility options becoming available as television is switched to digital transmissions, audience research into television representations must include a corresponding consideration of access. This book provides a comprehensive and critical study of the way people with disability access and watch digital TV. International case studies and media reports are complimented by findings of a user-focused study into accessibility and representation captured during the Australian digital television switchover in 2013-2014. This book will provide a reliable, independent guide to fundamental shifts in media access while also offering insight from the disability community. It will be essential reading for researchers working on disability and media, as well as television, communications and culture; upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students in cultural studies; along with general readers with an interest in disability and digital culture.

This book tells the stories of disabled people who have been influential in creating modern mass media. Through the voices of key disabled media makers and collaborators, the author highlights the ways in which their contributions are changing society’s understanding of disability and shaping mass media and culture. Spanning a range of media formats – television/streaming productions, performances, podcasts, TED Talks, films, reality TV, graphic novels, and social media channels – the book illustrates how disabled people are confronting the marginalization they have faced in mass media for decades. Modern disabled media creators are leveraging new media platforms to recognize the lived experiences of disability and their authentic place in media culture.This innovative and thought-provoking volume will be an important read for scholars, disability advocates, and students of Disability Studies, Mass Communication/Media Studies, as well as mass media production faculty, disabled people, and their allies.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book tells the stories of disabled people who have been influential in creating modern mass media. Through the voices of key disabled media makers and collaborators, the author highlights the ways in which their contributions are changing society’s understanding of disability and shaping mass media and culture. Spanning a range of media formats – television/streaming productions, performances, podcasts, TED Talks, films, reality TV, graphic novels, and social media channels – the book illustrates how disabled people are confronting the marginalization they have faced in mass media for decades. Modern disabled media creators are leveraging new media platforms to recognize the lived experiences of disability and their authentic place in media culture.This innovative and thought-provoking volume will be an important read for scholars, disability advocates, and students of Disability Studies, Mass Communication/Media Studies, as well as mass media production faculty, disabled people, and their allies.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book explores the opportunities and challenges people with disabilities experience in the context of digital games from the perspective of three related areas: representation, access and inclusion, and community.Drawing on key concerns in disability media studies, the book brings together scholars from disability studies and game studies, alongside game developers, educators, and disability rights activists, to reflect upon the increasing visibility of disabled characters in digital games. Chapters explore the contemporary gaming environment as it relates to disability on platforms such as Twitch, Minecraft, and Tingyou, while also addressing future possibilities and pitfalls for people with disabilities within gaming given the rise of virtual reality applications, and augmented games such as Pokémon Go. The book asks how game developers can attempt to represent diverse abilities, taking games such as BlindSide and Overwatch as examples.A significant collection for scholars and students interested in the critical analysis of digital games, this volume will be of interest across several disciplines including game studies, game design and development, internet, visual, cultural, communication and media studies, as well as disability studies.

Bringing together scholars from around the world to research the intersection between media and disability, this edited collection aims to offer an interdisciplinary exploration and critique of print, broadcast and online representations of physical and mental impairments.Drawing on a wide range of case studies addressing how people can be ‘othered’ in contemporary media, the chapters focus on analyses of hateful discourses about disability on Reddit, news coverage of disability and education, media access of individuals with disabilities, the logic of memes and brain tumour on Twitter, celebrity and Down Syndrome on Instagram, disability in TV drama, the metaphor of disability for the nation; as well as an autoethnography of treatment of breast cancer. Providing a much-needed global perspective, Disability, Media, and Representations examines the relationship between self-representation and representations in either reinforcing or debunking myths around disability, and ways in which academic discourse can be differently articulated to study the relationship between media and disability. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of disability studies and media studies as well as activists and readers engaged in debates on diversity, inclusivity and the media.

Representation of Disability in Children’s Video Games looks at how children’s engagement with characters and stories in video games helps create the perception of disability they have as teens and adults. Drawing on child development theory supported by neuroscience, the book shows how the scaffold of information, the schema, adults have of disability is first created at a very young age as they interact through play with characters with disabilities in narrative video games.Positing that early video game play experiences should provide exposure to narrative schemas that add understanding and help create meaning about the disability represented, the book presents how such representation in children’s video games maps against cognitive development and the psychomotor and cognitive needs and abilities of children 3–12. Through close readings of over 40 PEGI 3 and PEGI 7 (ESRB E, 10+) games and analysis of games as diverse as Backyard Baseball and Sly Cooper, the author defines broad categories of representation: representation as cosmetic, providing exposure but not game play utility; as incidental, used as a device that provides purpose for the narrative; or as more authentically representing the disability as integral to the character and their life. The book provides readers with an overview of contemporary games that betters their understanding of how children’s games present disability and how children create their perceptions through interaction with characters and stories. This book will be of interest to academics and students of game studies in topics such as behavioural science, ethics, and HCI, as well as in sociology, communications, and digital media. It is pertinent in particular to game developers and to educators, disability advocates, parents, and policy makers.

Representation of Disability in Children’s Video Games looks at how children’s engagement with characters and stories in video games helps create the perception of disability they have as teens and adults. Drawing on child development theory supported by neuroscience, the book shows how the scaffold of information, the schema, adults have of disability is first created at a very young age as they interact through play with characters with disabilities in narrative video games.Positing that early video game play experiences should provide exposure to narrative schemas that add understanding and help create meaning about the disability represented, the book presents how such representation in children’s video games maps against cognitive development and the psychomotor and cognitive needs and abilities of children 3–12. Through close readings of over 40 PEGI 3 and PEGI 7 (ESRB E, 10+) games and analysis of games as diverse as Backyard Baseball and Sly Cooper, the author defines broad categories of representation: representation as cosmetic, providing exposure but not game play utility; as incidental, used as a device that provides purpose for the narrative; or as more authentically representing the disability as integral to the character and their life. The book provides readers with an overview of contemporary games that betters their understanding of how children’s games present disability and how children create their perceptions through interaction with characters and stories. This book will be of interest to academics and students of game studies in topics such as behavioural science, ethics, and HCI, as well as in sociology, communications, and digital media. It is pertinent in particular to game developers and to educators, disability advocates, parents, and policy makers.

Bringing together scholars from around the world to research the intersection between media and disability, this edited collection aims to offer an interdisciplinary exploration and critique of print, broadcast and online representations of physical and mental impairments.Drawing on a wide range of case studies addressing how people can be ‘othered’ in contemporary media, the chapters focus on analyses of hateful discourses about disability on Reddit, news coverage of disability and education, media access of individuals with disabilities, the logic of memes and brain tumour on Twitter, celebrity and Down Syndrome on Instagram, disability in TV drama, the metaphor of disability for the nation; as well as an autoethnography of treatment of breast cancer. Providing a much-needed global perspective, Disability, Media, and Representations examines the relationship between self-representation and representations in either reinforcing or debunking myths around disability, and ways in which academic discourse can be differently articulated to study the relationship between media and disability. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of disability studies and media studies as well as activists and readers engaged in debates on diversity, inclusivity and the media.