Towson University Department of Mass Communication
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Browsing Towson University Department of Mass Communication by Author "Dorries, Bruce"
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Item Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language(Taylor & Francis, 2006-01) Haller, Beth A.; Dorries, Bruce; Rahn, Jessica; Towson University. Department of Mass Communication and Communication StudiesThis study examines disability terminology to explore how the news media frame cultural representations of the disability community. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on journalist’s language choices about disability topics. A content analysis of news stories using disability terms in The Washington Post and The New York Times during the past decade was conducted. The paper illustrates that disability community identity continues to be formed, transformed and maintained through news media presentations of disability terminology. The paper argues that the US Disability Rights Movement had some success during the 1990s in putting forth language that advances its aims, though the study also suggests that some journalists continue to use terms that perpetuate limiting, narrow stereotypes about people with disabilities.Item The news of inclusive education: a narrative analysis(Taylor & Francis, 2001-10) Dorries, Bruce; Haller, Beth A.; Towson University. Department of Mass Communication and Communication StudiesThis paper investigates a nationally publicized case in the debate over the best method of educating millions of children with severe disabilities. Using Fisher’s narrative paradigm, this paper analyses 4 years of the extensive media coverage of the legal battles of Mark Hartmann’s family. The 11-year-old’s parents took the Loudoun County, VA, Board of Education to court to reinstate their autistic son in a regular classroom. Much media attention focused on the story because it dramatized the issues concerning the national debate about inclusion. The paper provides a synopsis of the narratives about inclusive education within the news media that arose from their coverage of the Hartmann case. Through the press, competing interests told their stories to the public, hoping to win the moral high ground and persuade others of the ‘good reasons’ that support their understanding of the costs or bene fits of inclusion. Although the Hartmanns lost in court, this narrative analysis suggests that the family and its supporters provided more persuasive narrative themes in the news media’s court of public opinion, thus advancing the national inclusion movement.