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This article examines self-representations in a social media campaign against the discrimination of people with disabilities. We focus specifically on how these representations are related to various narratives and discourses, and in what ways the representations either adhere to or challenge normative discourses, or whether they offer counter-discourses. Considering that our cultural assumptions are influenced by the representations we are exposed to, we also discuss the possible potential of self-representations for the audience of the campaign. The empirical material consists of a digital activism campaign conducted on Instagram in Sweden that was constructed through self-representations (photos and short texts). The study combines discourse analysis and visual analysis with focus on how the persons present themselves in the campaign, how disability is mentioned and/or displayed, and how a presentation adheres to or challenges a model of understanding disability, such as the medical or social models. We found a diverse set of claims, all with the common goal of acknowledging discrimination, in order to make it visible and bring about change. The narratives identified indicate a variety of strategies for understanding disability and various styles that people adopt to relate to established discourses on disabilities. Through this campaign, the bloggers could find and provide support, but they also took the stage by requesting that the audience listen. The campaign examined in this study can be further understood as an effort and a step towards increased visibility and politicization of disability.

Final reports of the UNESCO Small Grants Programme: “Human Rights Based Approach to Poverty Eradication

Historically, disability in comedy has taken the form of joking at the expense of disabled persons. In modern times, it is first and foremost through media that the public is exposed to representations of disability, and media is considered societys most far-reaching (re)producer of cultural values. This degrading ridicule in combination with the pervasiveness of media has made disability and humour a controversial combination. Through discourse analysis this article analyses three contemporary mainstream cinema comedies about disability with the overall aim to contribute to enhanced knowledge of how different articulations promote or challenge hegemonic presumptions about disability. The analysis shows that empowering images and stereotypes of disability exist simultaneously as competing discourses in media representations. The conclusion is that aware decisions about how to represent disability are indispensable for film-makers due to the major role of media in forming public perceptions.

This project studied violations of human rights of disabled women in Nicaragua, in order to apply the Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities.

Even though the goals of Swedish disability-politics are equality, full participation and autonomy, people with disabilities almost every day encounter discrimination and oppression. This thesis deals with the question of the public service-medias role in this discrepancy between political rhetoric and practices. The study of mass media’s role is interesting considering its cultural impact and the importance of cultural values in all kinds of communication situations. The focus of the study is on Swedish public service-television and the aim is to investigate the role of SVT in the implementation of the political goals of disability-politics. To what extent do SVT promote these goals and to what extent do they counteract them? The study’s ambition is both descriptive and analytical. Theoretically the study takes as its point of departure a social constructionist perspective. The only reality we thus can get in contact with is one that, via our language, has passed through our former knowledge and experiences. Language is therefore the main object of study. Another theoretical point of departure is a normative view on the role of mass media in society. This approach is characterized by the assumption that mass media has a certain usefulness for society as a whole, which in itself is a central purpose for public service-media.

The study is based on data consisting of programme descriptions and video copies of programmes from the start of SVT in 1956 until 2 000. Altogether it represents more than

2 000 TV-programmes and over 40 000 broadcasting hours. Furthermore, the data consist of official political documents regarding media and disability matters. The data are approached from a discourse-analytical perspective and investigated in three studies. One of the data clusters was used to carry out a quantitative outline of SVT’s representations of disability. Another was used in an analysis of the socio-historical context and its changes over time and yet another was an analysis of the contents and narratives of the programmes.

The main conclusions are that disabled persons and programmes that deals with disability issues are, and has been, rare in SVT, not more than 1-2 hours per 1 000 broadcast hours. The amount is the same today as it was in 1956. Another conclusion is that even though it seems like SVT is trying to promote the goals of disability-politics the consequences appears to be that SVT instead counteract them. One reason might be that the dominating representation in SVT has been of disability and disabled persons as normal. But because of journalistic practices, the outcome becomes portrays of deviance and The Other. This solution, however, is too simplistic. There is also a problem with the political rhetoric. As long as political goals, formulated in terms of ideals, which by definition are impossible to achieve, there will always be a discrepancy between political rhetoric and practices. The final conclusion therefore, is that reflections need to be done and consciousness needs to be raised in order to discover the discrepancy and from that point, try to create a change.

Normative time occupies a prominent place in life course theory. Time intersects with the life course to dictate discourses of appropriate life stage progression in a linear chain of events from birth to reproduction and finally death. Taking crip time and the life course as their focus, the papers in this special section recognize that cultural understandings of what constitutes disability are connected to understandings of time and the idea of a normative life course, which in turn builds on ableist norms. The idea of ability as the desirable normal state creates a realm of compulsory able-bodidness. Everybody that falls outside this hegemonic assumption is culturally deviant and wrong. Crip time creates an understanding of time that differs from ableist time and unravels the social construction of ability. Crip time is approached from multiple perspectives in this special section and traverse a number of disciplines and different methodologies.

In spite of the fact that we are living in a digital era the position of traditional news media as the fi rst chosen source of information has not been altered. Th is is especially true when it comes to older persons. What are the reasons for this persistency? Th is article gives an account of how older persons refl ect on whether and why they believe in, and trust, news press reporting and their reasons for acquiring news from traditional news media. Using a discourse theoretical logics approach we found that whether or not the informants believed in and trusted the news they all referred to an overarching fantasy stating that it is a right and an obligation of an ideal citizen to update oneself of the surrounding world via the news media. We also found social habits to be crucial for the informants’ practice of obtaining information from the news media.

News media reporting on mental illness in western countries shows that mentally ill persons are mostly portrayed as dangerous and as perpetrators of violent crimes. A comparison with news media in a post-Soviet nation shows the same result. A Lithuanian non governmental organization initiated a quantitative analysis on media reporting on mentally ill persons in comparison with Norway and Sweden. The most common topic in all three nations was violent crime stories. This article discusses some of the results from the quantitative study of 566 news articles in autumn 2008, and offers a deepened discussion about the reporting on violent crime stories with a mentally ill perpetrator via an exploratory qualitative analysis of one violent crime case from each nation.

The aim of this project is to focus on violations of Human Rights concerning women with disabilities in a developing country.

The cultural understanding of what constitutes a disability is connected to understandings of time, aging and the idea of a normative life course. However, research with a life course perspective within disability studies has often focused on possibilities and obstacles to achieve the goals of the normative life such as work, marriage and children. Studies in ableism, on the other hand, has focused on the construction of the normative life course itself. According to Kafer (2012) able-bodiedness as the desirable normal permeates our understanding of time. But, rendering crip embodiments and their challenges to normative time creates an understanding of time that differs from the able-bodied one - as well as presenting a challenge to the construct of time and life courses in a normative ableist sense.

This special section aims to advance knowledge and discussion of the ascribed disabled life course by employing perspectives on disability and time that draws from the understanding of ableist normalcy and crip time, thus contributing to field of ableism studies.

Celebrations of local volunteering as a way to cope with cutbacks are frequent. Not least are such celebrations apparent within the media, where descriptions of local initiatives are sometimes seen as the solutions to downward spiralling trends in Swedish rural areas. The paper explores the media production of meaning around rural resilience as they covered initiatives where rural populations mobilised to 'save' threatened local service for their supposed public interest. Using the concepts of 'patchy resilience' and 'cruel optimism', the paper points at how the representations attach rural areas and identities to a stereotypical rural imagery while also representing a resilience ideal that risks glorifying neoliberal responsibilisation.

The ageing of populations has been a topic of discussion during the last few decades, but how is this subject represented in the media, and what images of old age are produced? In this article we present the results of a quantitative content analysis that investigates how the concept of population ageing has been represented in Swedish local and national daily news press between 1988 and 2009, and the old age positions that are offered in these representations. We also use discourse analysis in order to qualitatively examine the ways in which the concept of population ageing is articulated in these news press articles and the old age positions that are thereby constituted. The results show that the concept is constituted as a naturalised expert concept, and is primarily used in order to contextualise articles about future political and economical difficulties or even crises. By articulating population ageing with both political policies, political economy and older people’s (as a group) reported need for care and services, population ageing was constituted as a political economic concern rather than a problem for the aged individual.

From an international perspective, media representations of population ageing have been described as apocalyptic in character. In this article, we analyse the way population ageing is represented in three Swedish newspapers: Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Västerbottens-Kuriren. The aim is to investigate Swedish news-press representations of population ageing and the old age identities that they offer. We conduct qualitative analyses of the articulations between the verbal content and the use of illustrations, metaphorical language, headlines and captions using the concepts offered by discourse theory. The analysis of the material shows that the studied newspapers firmly position population ageing within a wider discourse of political economy and as a threat to the concept of welfare. Growth is promoted as a self-evident means for adjusting to the expected threat. Illustrations and metaphorical language helped to constitute population ageing as a serious, dichotomised (e.g. young vs. Old) and emotive (e.g. addressing anxiety and ear) problem. The analyses also show how the representations of population ageing bear some populist features, and we argue that such features support a de-politicisation of the phenomenon population ageing.

From an international perspective, media representations of population ageing have been described as apocalyptic in character. In this article, we analyse the way population ageing is represented in three Swedish newspapers: Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Västerbottens-Kuriren. The aim is to investigate Swedish news-press representations of population ageing and the old age identities that they offer. We conduct qualitative analyses of the articulations between the verbal content and the use of illustrations, metaphorical language, headlines and captions using the concepts offered by discourse theory. The analysis of the material shows that the studied newspapers firmly position population ageing within a wider discourse of political economy and as a threat to the concept of welfare. Growth is promoted as a self-evident means for adjusting to the expected threat. Illustrations and metaphorical language helped to constitute population ageing as a serious, dichotomised (e.g. young vs. old) and emotive (e.g. addressing anxiety and fear) problem. The analyses also show how the representations of population ageing bear some populist features, and we argue that such features support a de-politicisation of the phenomenon population ageing. © The Authors.

Consensus and personified conflicts: Representations of elderly care issues in Swedish newspapers Elderly care issues are commonly framed in public discourse. In mass media the representations of such issues are influenced by media logic. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse how elderly care issues were represented in three Swedish newspapers during the first half of 2007. How were the problems characterized? How were different actors characterized and which roles were they assigned? How are conflicts of interests described? Finally, we aim to discuss how media contribute to an understanding of the complexity of elderly care as a whole. Taken together, the articles do not provide a coherent picture. However, costs, quality of care and demographic issues were common themes. The elderly were commonly represented in personal narratives about. problems that occurred when they needed elderly care. The elderly in the future are projected as more active and demanding than the elderly today. The care workers were active voices in discussions about working conditions, but absent in discussions about their education and professional identity, which was an issue commonly advocated by politicians. Many issues were represented as conflicts between the individual elderly and the care system or between care workers and their employers. More elaborated discussions about how to prioritize between different needs and demands were rare. This can be seen as examples of how the media tends to use personification, simplification and polarization as means to tell interesting stories.

Previous research has pointed to the fact that ideological images of geographies are bound up with the ongoing struggle for economic and social resources, and that moral values and emotions are central in rendering such images intelligible and accepted. To explore this further, we critically engage with the ways in which moral values and emotions contribute to the (re)production of centres and peripheries in the Swedish news press reports of public-sector job relocations. We deploy the discourse theoretical notion of ideological fantasy to critically explain the forces that make particular moral and emotional judgements comprehensible. We identify two discourses in the news press material – one about competence and one about compensation – built up by morally and emotionally charged articulations. We argue that ideological fantasies worked as driving forces both in this moral and emotional news debate and also in the ongoing constitution of geographies.

Författarna undersöker TV-humorns förutsättningar att vidarebefordra förståelse och tolerans över etniska och kulturella gränser.

Humour has the potential to challenge or reproduce norms, established power relations, preconceived notions and oppressive structures, not least for marginalized groups. The purpose of this article is to explore humour as a potential tool to make visible and challenge normative notions about disability. The question posed to the material is: How is humour used to make visible and challenge ableism in interview conversations between people with experiences of disability? The material for this study consists of a Swedish podcast, where people with different disabilities are interviewed by podcasters who are also disabled. The podcast is a medium where the conditions for conversations differ from other traditional media because they are not governed by broadcasting rules as traditional media are. In the analysis it is examined how the participants use absurdity, exaggerations, and understatements as well as surprise effects which makes ableism visible. The three themes examined are the notions of (im)possible subject positions, the narrative of the tragic life and the able-bodied ideal. One of the conclusions discussed is that the humour used indicates that there is co-identification among the participants which both shows that the participants have common experiences that are joked about as absurd, and sometimes different experiences or attitudes, which are negotiated by using humour as a way of dealing with situations that could be socially difficult.

Humour has the potential to challenge or reproduce norms, established power relations, preconceived notions and oppressive structures, not least for marginalized groups. The purpose of this article is to explore humour as a potential tool to make visible and challenge normative notions about disability. The question posed to the material is: How is humour used to make visible and challenge ableism in interview conversations between people with experiences of disability? The material for this study consists of a Swedish podcast, where people with different disabilities are interviewed by podcasters who are also disabled. The podcast is a medium where the conditions for conversations differ from other traditional media because they are not governed by broadcasting rules as traditional media are. In the analysis it is examined how the participants use absurdity, exaggerations, and understatements as well as surprise effects which makes ableism visible. The three themes examined are the notions of (im)possible subject positions, the narrative of the tragic life and the able-bodied ideal. One of the conclusions discussed is that the humour used indicates that there is co-identification among the participants which both shows that the participants have common experiences that are joked about as absurd, and sometimes different experiences or attitudes, which are negotiated by using humour as a way of dealing with situations that could be socially difficult.

People with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the world (15% or 1 billion). Despite advocacy work and political advances in disability rights such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, they are still marginalized in society and disability is often considered solely a medical condition associated with personal tragedy and exclusion. Since 2016, the European Research Council has funded the DISLIFE project’s proposal to research ‘liveable disabilities’ in Sweden from the 1800s until today. In this chapter, we present the project and its results on how societal circumstances have shaped the opportunities and lives of people with disabilities across time. We discuss the project’s use of the life course concept and from ableist perspectives and propose avenues for future research. Since the project results indicate that there have been little progress over time concerning the life opportunities of people with disabilities, a paramount work is ahead to which research aware of ableism can contribute.

As previous research has shown, people with disabilities often have restricted access to adulthood and its corresponding life events (including sexuality, partnership and parenthood), both in society and in popular cultural representations. This article analyzes five contemporary Swedish fiction films with protagonists with disabilities in order to consider how and in what ways they depict romantic relationships, sexuality, and reproduction as manifestations of adulthood in normative time and life course. The aim is to analyze if ableist norms related to time, adulthood, and sexuality is confirmed or challenged in these films. Four of the five films confirmed the ableist norm and used normalizing strategies to assimilate the disability position into normative life course and timeline. One of the films challenged the ableist implications of the normative timeline thus providing the possibility of crip time. Given media representations’ powerful dissemination of cultural values it is of great importance to scrutinize its underlying cultural values.