Visualization of disability in news photographs: an analytical framework

Abstract

This article proposes a framework for analyzing visual discourses of disability in press photographs: the Visual Discourses of Disability (ViDD) framework. The development of this framework is based on an analysis of 670 news photographs of disability published in a Malaysian English-language mainstream newspaper. Within the ViDD, the authors propose the notion of perspectivization of disability: how elements in a photo are configured to frame the perspective of disability. These configurations can be placed on a cline, from perspectivizing to personizing. In addition, the cumulative attitudinal meanings in a news image can be placed on another cline, from enabling to disabling. The ViDD framework combines both clines to understand and explain how news photographs construe disability. This framework can serve as a tool for making informed choices in selecting and publishing images of people with a disability, and of disability.