Giving Compass' Take:
- Philanthropy News Digest reports on a study demonstrating that people with disabilities are often inaccurately portrayed or unseen entirely in media.
- What are the benefits of hiring disabled actors, writers, directors, and other workers to produce stories about people with disabilities?
- Learn more about increasing the inclusion of people with disabilities in media.
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Despite the fact that 26 percent of U.S. adults live with a physical or psychological disability, people with disabilities are largely unseen or inaccurately depicted in movies and other media, a study by Nielsen and RespectAbility finds.
Based on a Nielsen survey, the study found that respondents with disabilities were 7 percent more likely than other respondents to say that there was not enough representation of disabled characters onscreen and 8 percent more likely to say that a television show's portrayal of a character with a disability was inaccurate. An analysis of a Nielsen database of more than ninety thousand films and TV shows from 1920 to 2020 found that while only three thousand titles included significant disability themes or content, the volume of disability-inclusive content in 2011-20 increased by more than 175 percent over the previous decade.
Read the full article about people with disabilities in media at Philanthropy News Digest.