Page 144 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

D sab l t es and the Med a | 1

universal service requirements and public networks in the early days of tele-
phony echo in contemporary debates over broadband and the digital divide.
see also Blogosphere; Communication Rights in a Global Context; Internet and
Its Radical Potential; Media Reform; Minority Media Ownership; Net Neutrality;
Public Sphere; Regulating the Airwaves; Representations of Race; User-Created
Content and Audience Participation.
Further reading: Bagga, R. K., Kenneth Keniston, and Rohit Raj Mathur. The State, IT and
Development. London: Sage, 2005; Bridges.org. “Spanning the Digital Divide.” Bridges.
org (May 2001). http://old.bridges.org/spanning/pdf/spanning_the_digital_divide.pdf;
Compaine, Benjamin M. The Digital Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a Myth? Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001; Digital Divide Network. http://www.digitaldivide.net/.
Navas-Sabater, Juan, Andrew Dymond, and Niina Juntunen. Telecommunications and
Information Services for the Poor: Toward a Strategy for Universal Access. Washington,
DC: World Bank, 2002; Norris, Pippa. Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information
Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001;
Pew Internet & American Life Project, Home Broadband Adoption 2006. Available at:
http://pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband_trends2006.pdf. Servon, Lisa J. Bridging
the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing, 2002; Solomon, Gwen, Nancy J. Allen, and Paul Resta. Toward Digital Eq-
uity: Bridging the Divide in Education. London: Allyn and Bacon, 2003; Warschauer,
Mark. “Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide.” First Monday 7, no. 7 (July 2002). http://
firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_7/warschauer/index.html.
Chad Raphael

disaBilities and the Media

Representation of persons with disabilities in the media reveals societal at-
titudes as well as the limits and fears of society’s understanding toward persons
with disabilities. Media depictions have real repercussions on the lives of per-
sons with disabilities, and all the more so when they are physically unable to
speak for themselves, or if they lack access to media tools of representation. It
can be said that we will all one day be disabled at some time in our lives. In
light of continuing scientific developments in medicine, reproductive technol-
ogy, prenatal genetic testing, and much more, we need to seek ways to change
ourselves to make the world a better place for persons with disabilities.

mEanings anD moDELs oF DisaBiLiTy

Although disability is a distinctly modern concept, representations of
disability—of the human body injured and diseased—have been with us as long
as the human body has been represented in painting and in sculpture. Along
with the numerous technological innovations of the modern age—photography,
the rapid and widespread distribution of text and images first via newspapers
and magazines, then via television and film, and now via the Internet—have
arisen more images of disability. Images of persons from war zones and from
foreign countries that do not have access to the same medical care as in the West