Today, society can be/is easily influenced by media. Although the influence can come from all sorts of electronic systems, such as mobile devices and gaming systems, my focus is going to be on televisions. According to PSFK (a company that follows and reports trends in technology), televisions still dominate as the number one electronic system used in the United States. This statistic may seem unreasonable, because we get the impression that almost everybody uses some sort of mobile device these days. However, around 92 percent of the United States households own at least one television, while usually only people of the age 13 years or older own a mobile device. Because televisions are the most used devices, it is easy to be influenced by the
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For example, when producers put an able-bodied person above the person with disability or as if an able-bodied person is looking down to a person with disabilities, producers are sending a message that shows an able-bodied person as dominant, superior, more relevant to society, and/or show that able-bodied people have power over people with disabilities. Likewise, a camera perspective can be used to highlight or point out what producers want viewers to see. In “The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography,” Rosemarie Garland-Thomson explains how photography instructs and or constructs the way a nondisabled viewer thinks about disability. Thomson introduces four primary visual rhetorics of disability, which are the wondrous, the sentimental, the exotic, and the realistic. The wondrous highlights the physical differences between a person with disabilities and an able bodied person in order to elicit amazement or admiration. The sentimental portrays a person with disabilities as someone who needs help, and illustrates disability as an obstacle or as something to be solved and or eliminated from the world. The exotic exemplifies how people with disabilities are different from the able bodied viewer; it alienates and distances people with disabilities. The wondrous, the …show more content…
Because people are so uniformed about disability, stereotypes have arisen about how people with disabilities live their lives, how it’s like being a person with disabilities, and etc. In addition, the normalcy bell curve plays a big role in the construction of the stereotypical views on disability. In “Constructing Normalcy”, Lennard J. Davis explains what the normalcy bell curve is, and how it is used to segregate the “abnormal” people.
“The concept of a norm, unlike that of an ideal, implies that the majority of the population must or should somehow be part of the norm. The norm pins down that majority of the population that falls under the arch of the standard bell-shaped curve... So, with the concept of the norm comes the concept of deviations or extremes. When we think of bodies, in a society where the concept of the norm is operative, then people with disabilities will be thought of as deviants.” (Davis
For example, when producers put an able-bodied person above the person with disability or as if an able-bodied person is looking down to a person with disabilities, producers are sending a message that shows an able-bodied person as dominant, superior, more relevant to society, and/or show that able-bodied people have power over people with disabilities. Likewise, a camera perspective can be used to highlight or point out what producers want viewers to see. In “The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography,” Rosemarie Garland-Thomson explains how photography instructs and or constructs the way a nondisabled viewer thinks about disability. Thomson introduces four primary visual rhetorics of disability, which are the wondrous, the sentimental, the exotic, and the realistic. The wondrous highlights the physical differences between a person with disabilities and an able bodied person in order to elicit amazement or admiration. The sentimental portrays a person with disabilities as someone who needs help, and illustrates disability as an obstacle or as something to be solved and or eliminated from the world. The exotic exemplifies how people with disabilities are different from the able bodied viewer; it alienates and distances people with disabilities. The wondrous, the …show more content…
Because people are so uniformed about disability, stereotypes have arisen about how people with disabilities live their lives, how it’s like being a person with disabilities, and etc. In addition, the normalcy bell curve plays a big role in the construction of the stereotypical views on disability. In “Constructing Normalcy”, Lennard J. Davis explains what the normalcy bell curve is, and how it is used to segregate the “abnormal” people.
“The concept of a norm, unlike that of an ideal, implies that the majority of the population must or should somehow be part of the norm. The norm pins down that majority of the population that falls under the arch of the standard bell-shaped curve... So, with the concept of the norm comes the concept of deviations or extremes. When we think of bodies, in a society where the concept of the norm is operative, then people with disabilities will be thought of as deviants.” (Davis