Abstract

Starting in the 1960s, many communications theories sprung to life in response to social movements that thrived in that era. While those theories were applied to movements such as gender equality, the equal rights movement, and racial and ethnic minority recognition efforts, the disability community has largely been left outside of academic exploration. Building off of decades of stereotype and representation research within communications psychological theories, this study used eye tracking to understand how audiences respond to seeing disabled newscasters. Using quantitative analysis and experimental design to expose participants to a news anchor in a wheelchair, this study built off of studies about minority representation in the news to create valuable insight into how disabled communicators are viewed by audiences. Specifically, showing that audiences don't have a significantly different experience when seeing a disabled anchor than a non-disabled one. Among emotional reactions, recall, and trust metrics, only the emotional reaction scores were significantly different for two emotions; surprise and confusion. This study opens the discussion to challenge the assumption that audiences share the negative associations with disability that broadcast content has shown in the past.

Degree

College and Department

Fine Arts and Communications; Communications

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/