This is a list of panels organised by members of this group in ICA 2025 in Denver, Colorado.
Popular media and culture reproduces normative understandings about disability by highlighting a restrictive range of embodiments. Yet, disability can also be represented and embraced within the playful pleasures of popular media and culture. This panel explores three distinct, yet interconnected, ways in which disability figures in contemporary popular media and culture and spotlight how popular media and culture can disrupt hegemonic, normative narratives of disability and have reverberative effects on understandings of disability.
Division/Interest Group: Popular Media & Culture
Chair
Beth Haller, Towson U, USA
Presentations
Disabled People’s Thoughts on Disability Representation in Media by Luda Gogolushko, U of Oregon, USA
The Evolution of “Female Autism Phenotype” Discourse on Social Media: A Case Study of Two #ActuallyAutistic Vloggers by Kate Ellis, Carleton U, CANADA
Who Is Putting Words in Our Mouths by Karen Jeynes, Both Worlds Pictures, SOUTH AFRICA
“You Can Be Anything”: Barbie and Disability Representation by Hersinta, LSPR Institute, INDONESIA; Indrati Kurniana, LSPR Institute, INDONESIA; & Tribuana Tungga Dewi, Pancasila U, INDONESIA
In contemporary healthcare settings, disability is still associated with notions of stigma, prejudice, and deficit—and little with the social justice, human rights, celebration, and pride that disabled people have advocated for. This panel critically put into conversation health communication alongside narratives from, with, and by disabled people. We explore the myriad ways in which disability disrupts normative notions of healthcare and how health communication, in conjunction with disability research, can center disability experiences and identities.
Division/Interest Group: Health Communication
Chairs
Katie Ellis, Curtin U, AUSTRALIA
Presentations
Disrupting Identity: A Critical Conversation Analysis of How Young Women With Chronic Illness Talk About Disability by Hann Bingham Brunner, Oklahoma State U, USA
ADHD TikTok as Caring Existential Media by Deanna F. Holroyd, Ohio State U, USA & Amanda Lagerkvist, Uppsala U, SWEDEN
The Role of Podcasting in Awareness and Management of ADHD: Listener and Podcaster Perspective by Kate Ames, Torrens U, AUSTRALIA; Ann M. Bennett, Understood.org, USA; & Jaimie Klotz, Understood.org, USA
Disability and Inclusive Design: Health Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Katie Ellis, Curtin U, AUSTRALIA
In this panel, we combine critical disability research with communication and media studies to consider their intersections and possibilities for disrupting communication and media. We play on the three keywords of disability, disruption, and communication to put forth the following two provocations— how has communication disrupted disability and how can disability disrupt communication? More importantly, how can we continue to disrupt workings of communication and media in ways that meaningfully center disability?
Division/Interest Group: Theme
Chairs
Wenqi Tan, U of Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Presentations:
Disability and the Ethical Disruption of Media Technologies by Meryl Alper, Northeastern U, USA
Beyond Business-as-Usual: Accessibility as Methodological Disruption in Studies of Digital Media Industries by Elizabeth Ellcessor, U of Virginia, USA
Inclusion as Disruption: Rethinking Disability and Digital Transactions by Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Nanyang Technological U, SINGAPORE
Digital Citizenship and Disability: Disrupting & Consolidating Communication Rights by Gerard Goggin, Western Sydney U, AUSTRALIA
Disability activism has intimate interdependencies with technology. For disabled people, media technology—including social media—has provided new ways of navigating the world and challenging existing societal structures and barriers. This panel explores the ways disability activism with and through media technology disrupts activism practices, normative uses of digital platforms, and socio-cultural attitudes against disability. Our panelists, operating across global locations, investigate the varied enactments of disability activisms through media technology practice.
Division/Interest Group: Activism, Communication and Social Justice
Chairs
Abdul Rohman, RMIT Vietnam, VIETNAM
Presentations:
Communicating Disability Rights: Disability and Parent Perspectives by Umar Syaroni, U of Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Challenging Dominant Narratives Through Influ-Activism: How Disabled Instagram Influencers Shape Social Change by Manuela Farinosi, U of Udine, ITALY; & Filippo Trevisan, American U, USA
Communication in the Communitas: Disability and Visibility in the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement by Mohammad Sadegh Shadmani, U of Tehran, IRAN
Improvising Activist Affordances in a Mediatized World: The Diffusion of Nonvisual Photography Practices and Its Adaptation by Chinese Visually Impaired People by Guangsheng V. Huang, Zhejiang U, CHINA; Cong Cai, U of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CHINA; & Zhuoxiao Xie, Nanjing U, CHINA