Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘I Wouldn’t Be a Victim When It Comes to Being Heard’: Citizen Journalism and Civic Inclusion

  • Chapter
Media, Margins and Civic Agency

Abstract

For disabled people, the UK political landscape has in recent years provided a particularly harsh backdrop of austerity and ongoing cuts to welfare and disability benefits. In November 2014, for example, a 39-year-old woman who was unable to work due to chronic pain following two road traffic accidents took her own life. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had sent several letters threatening to cut off her disability benefits and also demanding that she pay back £4,000 she had already received. During the inquest into her death in March 2015, the county coroner, Anne Pember, noted that she believed the ‘upset caused by the potential withdrawal of her benefits had been the trigger for her to end her life’ (cited in Jones, 2015). According to freedom of information requests by the Disability News Network, the DWP had investigated some 49 cases where benefit claimants had died from February 2012 to February 2015 — 40 of these followed suicide or apparent suicide by the claimant, and 33 contained recommendations for improvements (Pring, 2015).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Allan, S. and Thorsen, E. (2009) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives, Vol. 1. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, C. (1992) Disabling Imagery: An Exploration of Media Portrayals of Disabled People. Halifax: Ryburn/BCODP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, C., Mercer, G. and Shakespeare, T. (1999) Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, R. (2008) Disability and the dedicated wheelchair athlete. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 37(6), 647–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Briant, E., Watson, N. and Philo, G. (2011) Bad News for Disabled People: How the Newspapers Are Reporting Disability. Glasgow, UK: Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research and Glasgow Media Unit, University of Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, C. and Scott, K. (2011) Mediated health campaigns: From information to social change, in D. Hook, B. Franks, and M. W. Bauer (eds) Social Psychology of Communication. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 266–284.

    Google Scholar 

  • Claydon, A., Gunter, B. and Reilly, P. (2015) Dis/Enablement?: An Analysis of the Representation of Disability on British Terrestrial Television Pre- and Post- the Paralympics, in D. Jackson, C. Hodges, R. Scullion, and M. Molesworth (eds) Reframing Disability? Media, (dis)Empowerment and Voice in the 2012 Paralympics. London: Routledge, 37–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cumberbatch, B. and Negrine, R. (1992) Images of Disability on Television. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Despouy, L. (1991) Human Rights and Disability. United Nations E/CN.4/Sub.2/1991/31

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, K. (2008) Beyond the AWW factor: Human interest profiles of Paralympians and the media navigation of physical difference and social stigma. Asia Pacific Media Educator. 19, 23–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garthwaite, K. (2011) ‘The language of shirkers and scroungers?’ Talking about illness, disability and coalition welfare reform. Disability & Society. 26 (3), 369–372.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goggin, G. and Newell, C. (2003) Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Disability in New Media. Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goggin, G. (2009) Disability, Media, and the Politics of Vulnerability. Asia Pacific Media Educator. 19, 2–1–2–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grant, W. (2000) Pressure Groups and British Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodges, C., Jackson, D., Scullion, R., Thompson, S. and Molesworth, M. (2014) Tracking Changes in Everyday Experiences of Disability and Disability Sport within the Context of the 2012. London Paralympics: CMC Publications, Bournemouth University. Available at: http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/cmc/files/2014/10/BU-2012-London-Paralympics.pdf (accessed 11 February 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  • Isaacs-Martin, W. (2008) (Re)creating gender identities in community media. Agenda: Empowering Women For Gender Equity. (77), 140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, C. (2015) Northampton woman, 39, took her own life after ‘constant battle’ to receive disability benefit. Northampton Chronicle & Echo, 5 March. Available at: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/northampton-woman-39-took-her-own-life-after-constant-battle-to-receive-disability-benefit-1–6615017 (accessed 8 March 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, J. (2001) Constructing Public Opinion: How Political Elites Do What They Like and Why We Seem to Go Along with It. Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, S., Van Couvering, E. and Thumin, N. (2005) Adult Media Literacy: A Review of the Research Literature. OfCOM. Available at: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/aml.pdf (accessed 20 February 2014).

    Google Scholar 

  • Metzgar, E., Kurpius, D. and Rowley, K. (2011) Defining hyperlocal media: Proposing a framework for discussion. New Media & Society. 13(5), 772–787.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Molesworth, M., Jackson, D. and Scullion, R. (2015) Where agendas collide: Online talk and the Paralympics, in D. Jackson, C. Hodges, R. Scullion, and M. Molesworth (eds) Reframing Disability? Media, (Dis)Empowerment and Voice in the 2012 Paralympics, London: Routledge, 123–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peers, D. (2012) Interrogating disability: The (de)composition of a recovering Paralympian. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. 4(2), 175–188. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/2159676X.2012. 685101 (accessed 11 September 2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pring, J. (2015) Secret DWP reviews called for improvements after benefit deaths. Disability News Service, 6 March. Available at: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/secret-dwp-reviews-called-for-improvements-after-benefit-deaths/ (accessed 8 March 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shakespeare, T. (1999) Art and lies? Representations of disability on film, in M. Corker and S. French (eds) Disability Discourse. Buckingham: Open University Press, 164–172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slater, J. (2012) Stepping outside normative neoliberal discourse: Youth and disability meet —the case of Jody McIntyre. Disability & Society. 27(5), 723–727.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swain, J. and French, S. (2000) Towards an affirmative model of disability. Disability and Society. 15(4), 569–582.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thorsen, E. and Allan, S. (2014) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives, Vol. 2. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevisan, F. (2013) Disabled People, Digital Campaigns, and Contentious Politics: Upload Successful or Connection Failed?, in R. Scullion, D. Lilleker, D. Jackson, and R. Gerodimos (eds) The Media, Political Participation, and Empowerment. London: Routledge, 175–191.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevisan, F. (2015) Contentious Disability Politics on the World Stage: Protest at the 2012 London Paralympics, in D. Jackson, M. Molesworth, and R. Scullion (eds) Reframing Disability? Media, (Dis)Empowerment and Voice in the 2012 Paralympics. London: Routledge, 154–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsagarousianou, R. (2001) Ethnic community media, community identity and citizenship in contemporary Britain, in N. Jankowski and O. Prehn (eds) Community Media in the Information Age: Perspectives and Prospects. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 209–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vicente, M. and Lopez, A. (2010) A Multidimensional Analysis of the Disability Digital Divide: Some Evidence for Internet Use. The Information Society. 26(1), 48–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wardle, C., Boyce, T. and Barron, J. (2009) Media coverage and audience reception of people with disfigurement or visible loss of function. The Healing Foundation. Available at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/resources/09mediacoverageofdisfigurement.pdf (accessed 16 May 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, G. (1996) Representing disability: Some questions of phenomenology and politics, in C. Barnes and G. Mercer (eds) Exploring the Divide. Leeds: The Disability Press, 194–212.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Einar Thorsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniel Jackson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ann Luce
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Media School, Bournemouth University, UK

    Einar Thorsen , Daniel Jackson , Heather Savigny  & Jenny Alexander , ,  & 

Copyright information

© 2015 Einar Thorsen, Daniel Jackson and Ann Luce

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Thorsen, E., Jackson, D., Luce, A. (2015). ‘I Wouldn’t Be a Victim When It Comes to Being Heard’: Citizen Journalism and Civic Inclusion. In: Thorsen, E., Jackson, D., Savigny, H., Alexander, J. (eds) Media, Margins and Civic Agency. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137512642_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation