Conference Papers

From Pity to Pride:People with disabilities, The media, and An Emerging Disability Culture by Miho Iwakuma

University of Oklahoma

525A Sooner Dr. Norman, Ok, 73072

(405) 325-9608

Miho@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu Abstract

Recent years, the media coverage of people with disabilities has changed fromseeing them as objects of pity to as people with equal rights like others..This paper examines several turning points in the past , which had significantimpacts on people with disabilities on the media. These incidents mentioned inthe paper are: the disability rights movement, the protest of the GallaudetUniversity students, and regulating the Americans with Disability Act. Thestudies done by Cogston and Haller also suggest that the media depiction ofpeople with disabilities has changed from the traditional models to theprogressive models, especially since the Gallaudet University students protest..In addition, the paper talks about a relationship between the media and thedisability culture - the common sentiment held among people with disabilities.Finally, the study mentions how other countries, such as Japan, are interrelatedwith the U.S. media through "global networks," and how the Japanese media haschanged portrayals of people with disabilities.

Introduction

1996 was the presidential election year in the United States. Like Clinton, aRepublican nominated senator, Bob Dole, appeared in the media almost every day,and the media coverage of him became increasingly intense toward November.Senator Dole is a war hero from World War II whose paralyzed right arm tells abattlefield story. As a presidential candidate, the media reported extensivelyon every move Dole makes. His pictures, including his paralyzed right arm, weretaken from every angle for newspapers and TV reports. Although he is not the first famous politician with disability in the U.S.history, the media coverage of these politicians changed as time went by.Franklin D. Roosevelt is probably the most famous among politicians withdisability. He acquired his polio during middle-age. Later, he became the U.S.President and guided the nation during the depression era and World War II.

Despite the fact that Roosevelt traveled around the nation, like Dole, and alsovisited other countries while stricken with polio, the media coverage ofRoosevelt was quite different from that of Dole. More than fifty years ago,under strict guidelines from the White House (in order to promote his "strength"as president), very few pictures of Roosevelt in a wheelchair or in bracesremain today (Nelson, 1994). It was the time when disability was viewed as asymbol of sickness, deserving of pity, or being deviant -- exclusively negative.And times have changed. The year of 1996, the U.S. might have even elected apresident with a visible disability. The presidential campaign of 1996symbolizes the changes for people with disabilities. The present paper assesses how the media has changed in terms of depictingpeople with disabilities, how people with disabilities have gained power throughthe media, and most importantly, how those changes have affected perceptions ofpeople with disabilities themselves. In order to do so, the paper mentionsseveral turning points with regard to people with disabilities and disabilityissues, such as the disability civil rights movement, the protest of theGallaudet University students, and regulating the Americans with DisabilitiesAct. Finally, the study mentions how other countries, such as Japan, areinterrelated with the U.S. media through "global networks," and how the Japanesemedia has changed portrayals of people with disabilities.

From Pity to Pride

Before the 1970s, the terms "disability" and "handicap" were exclusively viewedfrom the medical perspective (Hahn, 1987). In a similar vein, up until the1970s, people who possessed these characteristics of medical needs wereconsidered to be sick and in need of others' charity and pity (Funk, 1987). Oneexample of the medical and welfare model in the media is the Jerry Lewistelethon. The programs capture people with disabilities as "objects of pity"(Nelson, 1994, p. 5). On the other hand, according to Longmore (1987), the second meaning of"disability" and people with disabilities denotes a certain notion of "in spiteof his/her disability" -- stories of "supercrips" (a derivation of "supercripples"). Newspapers, TV news and dramas, and magazines promulgate these"supercrip" stories. The media prefer the "supercrip" stories because thesestories contain "inspirationalism," which is somewhat analogous with"sensationalism" for the media. One example of this kind of depiction is a TVmovie "The Terry Fox Story," which shows a young Canadian who crossed the nationthough she has an amputated leg (Nelson, 1994).

Although the "supercrip" model does not seem to have anything to do with thefirst one, the medical or welfare model, Shapiro (1994) notes that it "is theflip side of the pitiable poster child. It is just as hurtful, ... because itimplies that a disabled person is presumed deserving of pity -- instead ofrespect -- until he or she proves capable of overcoming a physical or mentallimitation through extraordinary feats" (p. 16). Therefore, Clogston (1991),who studies the media coverage of people with disabilities, even puts the"supercrip" model under the medical model as a subcategory.

Besides these medical, charity, and "supercrip" models, Haller (1995) uses the"business model," that is, "People with disabilities and their issues arepresented as costly to society and businesses especially" (p. 17). She usesthese models as "Traditional Categories" as opposed to "Progressive Categories"(the minority/civil rights model, the legal model, the cultural pluralism model,and the consumer model), which were originally created by Clogston.

There are several common themes among these traditional models. First, thesemedia depictions of people with disabilities imply that having disabilities is"their" fate and problem; therefore, it is "their" responsibility to overcome ordeal with the disabilities. Traditional categories, in other words, pay lessattention to "social" aspects of having disabilities such as people's prejudice,ignorance, and most importantly, the fact that they have rights like anyoneelse. Second, in relation to the power of the media, people with disabilities in thetraditional models are always objects to be covered by the media. It is alwaysthe media to decide when, where, and what to report about people withdisabilities. In the traditional models, people with disabilities are passive,rather than active. This is because in the past, people with disabilities werenot aware of their collective power and identity as a minority group that couldlater influence consumer markets, voting, and the media. People with disabilities as minority:"Discrimination" as a Bond

The number of people with disabilities is steadily increasing due to tworeasons, according to Braithwaite (1991). One reason is the increasing agingpopulation, and the other is an advanced medical technology. It is true thatsince people generally live much longer now than people did several decades ago,having disabilities, along with aging and because of the advanced technology,has become "not so special," but instead simply a fact of life. Shapiro (1994)notes that currently, nearly one in six Americans has some kind of disability.In his other book, "No Pity," Shapiro (1993) comments that this large butdiverse population of people with disabilities is both a strength and weaknessin relation to forming their own minority identity. Nevertheless, "All disabledpeople share one common experience - discrimination" (Shapiro, 1993, p. 24). In addition, because of the long history of stigma of disability, whiledisability is not contagious, people try to avoid interactions with thestigmatized individuals as if stigma of disability is contagious. This is eventrue among people with disabilities themselves (Goffman, 1963). Accordingly,Fisher and Galler (1988) state that "disabled people sometimes avoid each otherto keep from being identified with disability or with a disability more harshlystigmatized than one's own" (p. 176). Moreover, the author's interview with astudent with a disability confirms this kind of mentality. He said "No, I guessI prefer not to have any... I don't want any handicapped (friends)." Thesestatements indicate that people with disabilities internalize negativeperceptions of what others see in them. It is true that internalized selfstigma of people with disabilities had hampered for a long time any project tounite them as a minority group until the disability civil rights movementstarted in the 1960s. The Disability Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s:The Origin of the power

The disability rights movement was started along with outcries of otheroppressed minority groups such as blacks, homosexuals, and females for an equaltreatment (Funk, 1987). Funk (1987) carefully illustrates this era as theorigin of today's glowing disability rights movement. During this time, peoplewith disabilities started to form their organizations and coalition beyond theboundaries of different disabilities because they were bonded by commoninterests. It is in this era that people with disabilities started to seethemselves as "a class of people denied civil liberties," rather than simply acategory of people (Funk, 1987, p. 16). A watershed event occurred in April, 1977 (Funk, 1987; Shapiro, 1988).Disability activists occupied the Department of Health, Education, and Welfarefor 28 days to make sure the regulations were passed. By virtue of thisincident, politicians and law makers had to realize that people withdisabilities were beginning to have political influence. Despite the fact thatthis incident caught some national attention for awhile, the attention did notlast very long (Shapiro, 1988). Nevertheless, the disability rights movementdid not die during this era, but instead waited for a decade until the righttime came. Under the surface, the grass-roots of the movement kept expanding. The Deaf as a Culture: Proud to be the Deaf Among all kinds of groups of people with disabilities, it is probably the deafpeople who had had an awareness of their identity as "the Deaf" long before thetime when the disability rights movement started. Nowadays, people with hearingimpairments differentiate "the deaf" from "the Deaf." The former indicatespeople with hearing impairments, but they do not consider themselves as part ofa cultural group (the Deaf). On the other hand, the Deaf people, who havehearing impairments and the Deaf culture, are aware of their identity as aminority group (Jankowski, 1991). Jankowski (1991) examines the Deaf culture interms of the common language, nonverbal behavior, values, socializing patterns,and traditions. A Deaf student also testifies that "Deafness is not a handicap.It's a culture, a language, and I'm proud to be deaf" (Shapiro, 1993, p. 85). Although the Deaf people have distinct characteristics of their own as theDeaf, the deaf (or the Deaf) and other people with disabilities share similarexperiences such as being stereotyped, being discriminated against, and stillstruggling for equal rights. These shared feelings were heightened when theDeaf students at Gallaudet University closed down the school for a weekdemanding to have a deaf president for the first time in 124 years of thatschool's history. First, the university committee chose Dr. Zinser, who was theonly hearing candidate among the three, and this decision set the fire of theprotest by students and faculties of the school. Ransom (1995) calls thisincident "the struggle of discourses between two cultures" (p. 148). The Gallaudet University Protest andthe Disability Rights Movements When the Gallaudet students were protesting and the media were covering them,other people with disabilities in the nation, whether deaf or not, watched thereports with a feeling that "These students are fighting my fight" (Shapiro,1988). Robinson... is not deaf. But she uses a wheelchair and knows a lot about the barriers thrown up to people with disabilities, about the patronizing attitudes of others, about the desire to show everyone, as the Gallaudet students did, that 'I can be who I am and make it in the world.' The Gallaudet protest week made Robinson a 'TV news junkie, flipping the channels up and down' to catch scenes - over and over - of Gallaudet students signing, en masse, for a 'Deaf President Now.' 'It was' she says, 'one of the most poignant moments of my life.'" (Shapiro, 1988). This description indicates several significant points. First, it illustrateshow people with disabilities see other groups of people with disabilities. Theysee their pains and victories as their own (as Robinson said that the students'victory was "one of the most poignant moments of my life") and identify withthem. A Harris poll illustrates this "their-fight-is-my-fight" sentiment.According to the poll, over 70% of American people with disabilities say thatthey share a "common identity" with other people with disabilities, and 45% ofthem agree with the idea that people with disabilities are a minority group likeracial minorities (such as blacks and Hispanics). Secondly, Shapiro's article indicates that the media, especially the visualones, played an important role in forming the sense of commonality among peoplewith various disabilities. Without the media coverage of the protest, otherpeople with disabilities in the nation across couldn't "catch scenes," whichwere happening in far away places. Through the media, they could feel others'fights and victories as it was happening. In other words, the media, especiallyTV, bridged among people with disabilities as a group that shared a commoninterest, regardless of their different disabilities. In a similar vein, behind the camera, the Gallaudet students were clearlyconscious about how they were covered by the media and what kind of messagesthey were sending to others, especially those with disabilities. They knew thatthe media was the key for their battle. They were angry, but disciplined, andthis fact made the media report the protest favorably for the students (Haller,1991; Ramson, 1995). Many conferences were held on campus, volunteerinterpreters bridged communication barriers between the media and theprotesters, and these stories were aired nationally and internationally (Haller,1991). As a result, the protesters could receive an outpouring of donations andsupporting letters from viewers (Shapiro, 1993). In addition, other Deafstudents outside of Washington D.C. also responded quickly. Some rallied intheir places and others even flew to campus to support the protest afterwatching the reports (Shapiro, 1993). In sum, the Gallaudet case has asignificance in that people with disabilities, the Deaf students, succeeded inusing the media to send messages that they wanted to convey, rather than beingdepicted passively by the media. The Gallaudet effects have been felt beyond the campus. Overall, "Gallaudetgave Americans a new rights consciousness about disability" (Shapiro, 1993, p.75). More specifically, journalism started to tell more stories of people withdisabilities in the progressive models than the traditional models (Haller,1991). But most of all, it was not coincidental that only two years after the protestof the allaudet students, a significant law for all people with disabilities,the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. Faculties of theuniversity noted that King Jordan, who became the president after the protest,could give influential testimony at ADA hearings (Ranson, 1995). ADA, which ismeant to be the law for all people with disabilities, was passed with the helpof a favorable wind -- the protest of the Deaf. One for all, all for one. Other Disability Movements in the U.S. and the World before ADA:A unity When the protest at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1977was finished, the disability movement also seemed to vanish, at least on thesurface. However, invisible roots, which reach out among different kinds ofpeople with disabilities, were spreading under the ground. Shapiro (1988, 1989) raises five key factors of today's disability rightsmovement--a movement which advocates think is stronger than it was in 1977.First, since 1975, when the mainstreaming education law was passed, a greatnumber of children with disabilities have had education with others. When thechildren entered into college ages, universities started to be prepared toinclude students with disabilities. The University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign and the University of California, Berkeley were the first onesto provide accommodated housings for these students with disabilities (Funk,1987). Seven students with severe disabilities, who graduated from theUniversity of California with new insights, started the first Center forIndependent Living (CIL) in Berkeley. Today, the number of CILs is over 200. These CILs are the second impact tobolster the disability rights movement, according to Shapiro. The authorvisited the Berkeley CIL several years ago. The office was run by differentkinds of people with disabilities. The headperson used a wheelchair and thesecretary seemed to be Deaf. When asked where the bathroom was (by writtenmessage), she produced a key with a huge plastic card for people with visualimpairments. The CILs provide various kinds of services for people withdisabilities by people with disabilities. An underlying message is that peoplewith disabilities know what other people with disabilities want. The CILs also provide a sense of solidarity and commonality among people withdisabilities. More importantly, they created new types of activists andprofessionals with disabilities, who then played a crucial role for passing theADA (Shapiro, 1989). This is the third factor of today's disability rightsmovement, according to Shapiro (1988, 1989). Current disability activists arepolitically sophisticated and know how to use the media. When the Gallaudetprotest occurred, for instance, the Deaf students sought political help. Theytried to make the issue a national one. They asked powerful politicians suchSenator Bob Dole and the former President George Bush, who already recognized anemerging solidarity of people with disabilities as influential voters, tosupport the cause, and the politicians responded (Shapiro, 1993). Fourth, Shapiro (1989) mentions a growing aging population in the U.S. As onegets older, it becomes more likely that the person acquires some kind ofdisability. Therefore, it is not "their" issue anymore, since nearly one out ofsix Americans have some disabilities. Fifth, people with HIV have joined to themovement and they also have helped to raise a disability consciousness. As has been shown, the disability rights movement has grown, including not onlypeople with "traditional" disabilities, but also other oppressed minorities suchas people with AIDS or the elderly people. Further, the movement, which wasoriginated in the U.S., stimulated the formation of an internationalorganization--the Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) (Driedger, 1988). Currently, DPI enjoys credibility internationally, according to Driedger(1988). DPI has an influential voice over international organizations such asthe United Nations. DPI has had impact on regulating international policiesregarding disability issues because the organization is given ConsultativeStatus by UNESCO. The two organizations share information. Both the UnitedNations and DPI seek effective activities through the media (Lewis, 1995). TheUN named the year of 1981 as the Year of Disabled Persons and used the mediaextensively to raise awareness of people in all nations (Lewis, 1995). This isthe first incident of internationally united people with disabilities actingtogether and using the mass media, rather than being used by them. The unitedawareness and political sophistication of people with disabilities was the basisfor passing historical legislation, ADA, for people with disabilities. ADA, Politics, and the Media:Disabled People as a Political Force

1988 was a presidential election year. Shapiro (1993) illustrates how votesfrom people with disabilities changed the situation for Bush and later, how ADAwas regulated. In May of that year, disability activists gathered together anddecided to focus on the presidential campaign. Regardless of their differencesin political beliefs, again, they had a common goal, which was getting anacknowledgment of rights for people with disabilities. It was Bush who pledged first by saying "I'm going to do whatever it takes tomake sure the disabled are included in the mainstream" (Shapiro, 1993, p. 124).As soon as people with disabilities heard his pledges, many of them switchedtheir support to Bush. As a result, Bush gained two million votes, which was ahalf of the difference between Bush and Dukakis, from these switched voters.Shapiro (1993) introduces a vice president of Louis Harris and Associates'comment: "A candidate ignores the issues of disabled people at his own peril"(p. 125). In addition to their political purposes, some of politicians had personalmotives to pass ADA (Shapiro, 1989). Bush has two sons with disabilities andlost his daughter to leukemia at age 3. Edward Kennedy has a sister with amental retardation and a son who lost his leg. Weicker, who first introducedthe ADA to the Congress, has a son with Down's syndrome. These are the peoplewho know the life of people with disabilities. Moreover, some others havedisabilities themselves. Senator Dole has a disabled arm and Tony Coelho hasepilepsy. They are the life of people with disabilities. Indeed, since aboutone out of six Americans have some kind of disabilities, most of the ablebodiedhave friends, relatives or family members with disabilities. Thus, even for the many ablebodied, ADA is not just a law, but a personalmatter. And on July 26, 1991, Bush signed the ADA. This was the day whenpeople with disabilities and people around them won what they have desired forso long: the acknowledgment of the rights of people with disabilities. Since ADA was passed in 1988, there have been steady changes in the mediacoverage of people with disabilities. As stated before, the basic differencebetween a traditional and progressive model, which were originated by Clogston,is that the former sees that it is people with disabilities that have problems,while the later type of articles, progressive, shed light on "society'sinability or unwillingness to adapt its physical, social, and occupationalenvironments to accommodate all of its members [people with disabilities]"(Clogston, 1994, p. 46). Both Clogston (1994) and Haller (1995) agree with a new trend of media coverageof people with disabilities: slowly but surely, the media started to focus onthe "progressive" perspectives of people with disabilities, rather than"traditional" ones. When the author was in the U.S. in 1985-1986, TVcommercials using people with disabilities were almost nonexistent.Nevertheless, as Rabinovitz (1991) also notices, today, people with disabilitieshave gained roles in TV commercials and print advertisements. Rabinovitz (1991)says that companies and ad industries have recognized people with disabilitiesas an untapped consumer block. One TV ad even had no sound, but just a Deafactress, Marlee Matlin, signing with pride to an audience with captions at thebottom of the screen. Clogston (1992), who studied issues of The New York Times dating back 50 years,points out that the trend seems to start since 1976. According to Clogston(1994), two factors are especially influential in changing the tone of coverageof people with disabilities. One of them is whether the newspaper uses newsroomstyle guidelines regarding disability coverage and another is whether thereporter had a co-worker with a disability. It seems the later factor is moreimportant because "Diversity is worth doing. Diversity is what your newspapersare all about," says John Hockenberry, who is a radio reporter and uses awheelchair (Breiski, 1994, p. 82). The Media and International Communication:Beyond boundaries An impact of the U.S. media coverage of people with disabilities such as ADAand disability rights movements beyond the border cannot be ignored. Thisimpact is due to nations being "wired" to each other, and any occurrence in onenation can be sent to the rest of the world in a matter of seconds. People inother countries have also observed what have happened in the U.S. through themedia. Though the news, commercials, or imported entertainment, such as TVdramas, from the U.S., people in other countries may become familiar with seeingpeople with disabilities. For example, Japan imports a great amount of American TV dramas andcommercials. When the author was in Japan, she watched "Life Goes On." It wasastonishing for her because before the program was showed in the country, Japanhad not had any regular program that had a main character with disability.Almost all popular American dramas, from "Cosby Show" to "Beverly Hills 90210"are aired in Japan. "Beverly Hills 90210" has an episode dealing with a youngman who is a paraplegic and wants to have a date with Kelly, who is one of maincharacters in the show. The episode illustrates how frustrating it is for aperson with disability to be patronized by others and how a person withdisability can be isolated because of architecture barriers. This episode musthave been viewed by Japanese audience. The author also noticed that there is aperson in a wheelchair in the newsroom background of "Murphy Brown." Althoughshe never has a line or a single shot by herself, the audience sees her workingin a busy newsroom as they view the show. "Murphy Brown" is also aired in Japan.In addition, most American movies are showed at Japanese theaters. Berger (1992) notes that American media influence has a tremendous impact onThird-World countries because it is cheaper for them to buy American programsthan producing their own. These examples indicate that changes in a country,especially in a leading media nation such as the U.S., also affect othercountries sooner or later because of "global networks" (Korzenny & Schiff, 1992p. 5). Accordingly, Smith (1992) theorizes the media-networking model. The operational task can be thought of as forming, or utilizing existing, local networks, which are connected to the global network via mass media. The mass media serve to explore new populations with information, which motivates public interest and raises consciousness, increasing the size of, and interaction within, the global network (p. 204). Therefore, as the U.S. media depicts people with disabilities such as incommercials, dramas, or movies, it is also distributed to other countriesthrough "global networks." Consequently and most importantly, it possiblychanges local people's perceptions of people with disabilities. Recently, Japan has started producing several regular programs with peoplewith disabilities and they have made a big splash. This trend of making theprograms seems to be prompted by the Hanshin/Awaji earthquake, which causeddevastating damage in 1955. Nevertheless, the author assumes that the Japanesehave been accustomed to seeing people with disabilities in the entertainmentmedia even before the earthquake. In other words, there may have been afoundation within the Japanese people to make them feel less uncomfortableseeing people with disabilities in the entertainment media. Interestingly, during the year of 1995, some Japanese TV dramas illustratedstories of people with disabilities. According to the poll taken by a teenagermagazine, Seventeen, among the 10 most watched TV drams, there were three dramaswhich depicted people with disabilities as one of main characters. These wereAi shite iru to ittekure (Say "I Love You") (the 1st), Miseinen (The underage)(the 2nd), and Hoshi no kinka (The coins of the stars) (the 5th). Maincharacters in the two drams of the three (Ai shite iru to ittekure and Hoshi nokinka) had hearing impairments. Ai shite iru to ittekure was the most popular Japanese drama in 1995, and96 people of 270 voted for this (Seventeen, 1995). This fictional dramadepicted the love story between a painter with a hearing impairment, Koji, and ayoung actress, Hiroko. Unlike other Japanese dramas, the drama captioned thelines for both the deaf and the ablebodied audiences. Although the drama was made for the entertainment, it also was educationalfor people without hearing impairments in many ways. First, the dramasuccessfully depicted an everyday life of a deaf person, Koji, who lives byhimself, communicates with the ablebodied by writing, and has a romanticrelationship with Hiroko, who is the ablebodied. The drama also introduced manyitems that are used by deaf people, such as a trembling alarm clock or a flashlight on the ceiling which substitutes for a doorbell. In addition, the dramaillustrated social discrimination toward a deaf person. Koji's landlord openlyshowed her discrimination by saying "You never know what might happen if a deaflives alone." Koji once told Hiroko how painful it was to be taunted by otherswhen he used the sign language. Most of all, many hearing audiences learnedsome simple sign languages such as "I believe in you" or "I love you," or becameinterested in the sign language. A girl, who voted for the drama in themagazine, says "Each morning after the drama was aired, we tried sign languagesat the school," and another noted that she went to a class to learn the signlanguage (Seventeen, p. 118). When the author returned to Japan in 1996, she witnessed many books of thesign language, which were occupying a large space at several book stores. Thisincident indicates that the sign language has been acknowledged by the Japaneseand still learnt by people without hearing impairments. It is very possiblethat these fictional popular dramas depicting people with disabilities havechanged the Japanese people's perception toward people with disabilities. The example above illustrates how the Japanese media has portrayed peoplewith disabilities and its impact on the locals and society. It still is notclear if viewing American drams or movies has ever proceeded to make afoundation for the Japanese to be accustomed to viewing people with disabilitiesin the media. Nevertheless, one thing clear is that the stream of "globalnetworking" does not stop in Japan. It is well known that many Japanese TVdrams and movies are imported by other Asian media such as Chinese, Taiwanese,Malaysian, or Korean. The youngsters in those countries are especially activein watching the Japanese entertainment programs. They might be influenced whilewatching the drams such as Ai shite iru to itte kure, and a new consciousnesstoward people with disabilities might be formed within their societies. Category or Culture As mentioned before, according to the survey done in 1986, there was already"an emerging group consciousness" (Lewis and his associates, p. 9) among peoplewith disabilities in the U.S. The survey was done even before ADA was passed in1989. Also, when The Disability Rag asked their readers about common wordsreferring "the disabled" in 1987, Mary Johnson, who was an editor, was convincedthat "common language and culture was starting to emerge within the disabilityrights movement" because "responses were remarkably consistent" (Johnson, 1994,p. 27). The question still must be answered: Is "the disabled" a mere categoryor culture? Liachowitz (1988) comments that in order to register a law for people withdisabilities, lawmakers must have a "conception of disability as a socialconstruct" (p. 1). Further, Haller (1995) elaborates that laws such as ADAadmit that, consciously or unconsciously, there is a social structure or casteto which many people with disabilities belong. Geertz (1973) explains aboutsocial structure and culture as follows. Culture is the fabric of meaning in terms of which human beings interpret their experience and guide their action; social structure is the form that action takes, the actually existing network of social relations. Culture and social structure are then but different abstractions from the same phenomena. The one considers social action in respect to its meaning for those who carry it out, the other considers it in terms of its contribution to the functioning of some social system (Geertz, p. 145). Therefore, this is how "people with disabilities" is different from othercategories of people such as "left-handed" because, for example, left-handedpeople may have commonalties among them, but not social structure or culture.From Geertz's viewpoint, if there is a social structure, culture also exists. However, it seems there are several levels of the disability culture. Thefirst level of the disability culture can be seen in people who don't identifywith it, yet know how to live within it. They know, for example, what a whitecane is for even though they never use it for themselves. Also, they can read asymbol of wheelchair sign in a parking lot and find another space. The exampleelaborates that they know the meaning of the wheelchair sign. If culture is ashared meaning, as many communication scholars say, these people are also in thedisability culture, they just don't recognize or identify with it. In otherwords, it seems that whether a person identifies with the culture or not is adegree difference of consciousness. The second level of the disability culture can be seen in people who know whatit is like to be with people with disabilities such as immediate family membersor close friends. Goffman (1963) calls these people the "wise" (p. 28). Thewise, who don't have disabilities themselves, know the lives of people withdisabilities. The wise know because oftentimes the wise share the sameexperiences of people with disabilities (such as being stigmatized by others). The last level of disability culture is within people whose strongest identity(Hughes (1945) calls it "master status") is being "people with disabilities,"rather than others, such as "Americans" or "Buddhist." These people are thedisability culture. Interestingly, according to research, some people withdisabilities do not identify themselves as "the disabled" (Lewis Harris andAssociates, 1986). This fact demonstrates that having a disability does notmean having a high level of the disability culture, but rather, identifying withthe disability culture is a matter of awareness or consciousness. It seems,thus, that these levels of culture are accumulative. This means that people inthe highest level of the disability culture not only identify with that culture,but also that they can read the symbol of wheelchair and know what it is liketo be a person with disabilities. Therefore, it seems that disability culturehas emerged with the rise of people's consciousness. In other words, peoplehave always had disabilities, but they have only recently chosen their masterstatus as "people with disabilities" with pride. Also, it is ironic that thedisability culture is bolstered by the common experiences, or senses of beingdiscriminated against, or stigmatized. Conclusion The paper addresses several aspects of the lives of people with disabilities.The media coverage, the disability rights movement in the U.S. and its impactson other countries, and the disability culture are discussed. The paperexplains how the media has changed, in terms of choosing topics and viewingpeople with disabilities, from "traditional" types to "progressive" ones. Moreimportantly, the research mentions changes within people with disabilitiesthrough the course of several social movements. The law has been changedbecause people's consciousness has changed. In the U.S., several turning points covered by the media intensively suchas the Gallaudet University protest have built a sense of commonality amongpeople with different kinds of disabilities. For future research, aninterrelated relationship, if any, between the media coverage of people withdisabilities and a formation of the disability culture should be studied morefully. On the other hand, the media depiction of people with disabilitiesacross nations and its impact on the local and societies are also important tobe investigated. Indeed, The impacts of ADA and the emerging disability culturein the U.S. have crossed the border. A politician who is a paraplegic fromMoscow, Ilya Zaslavski, was inspired by ADA and made an announcement tointroduce a law for his own countrypersons -- a Soviets with Disability Act(SDA) (Shapiro, 1989). Japanese people with disabilities have watched closelywhat has been happening in the U.S. They have been encouraged by the disabilityrights movement and especially by the ADA. A Japanese company has sent youngJapanese with disabilities over the last ten years to the U.S., for severalweeks to a year, to learn, but not necessarily to imitate, from ADA and peoplewho made it. This of 1996 witnessed another presidential election. Today, there is littledoubt about the idea that people with disabilities are a strong political andeconomical force. In his 15-minute campaign film, for instance, Senator Doleand his wife talk about his disability for more than four minutes. In addition,there are several scenes showing people with disabilities. The campaign filmclearly shows a difference from the past, when the media never showed FranklinRoosevelt in a wheelchair in public. In addition to Dole's film, on the mostrecent People Weekly, a dancer who uses a wheelchair cerebrates the joy of life.These examples demonstrate that instead of pity, people have begun to feel pridein their disability culture.