Transcript `Advertising Ideology and the Scoial Process of Disability`

‘Advertising’s Role in Disability as a Social
Process’
By Mary-Ann O’Donovan
Supervisor: Dr. Katrina Lawlor
RESEARCH QUESTION
‘An investigation into the social process of disability
through mainstream advertising, with an examination
of advertising’s body ideal and what this means to the
disabled audience’
DISABILITY
– Disability as a social process
– Psycho-emotional dimensions of disability (Thomas,
1999; Reeve, 2002)
– Disability as a dramatization tool and metaphor in
film/TV (Longmore, 1985; Sutherland, 1997)
– ‘Hyperpresent’ in charity ads (Hevey, 1992)
– Absent from commercial advertising
ADVERTISING
– Advertising one of the most powerful
communication systems in the world (Schroeder,
1999)
– Reflective but only of certain values (Pollay, 1986)
– Audience are active not passive
– Marketing and Non-marketing Uses of Advertising
(O’Donohoe, 1993)
– Paucity of disabled people in advertising imagery
and also in advertising research
KEY STUDIES
– Panol & McBride (2001)
– Ganahl & Arbuckle (2001)
– Thomas (2001)
– Hardin et. al. (2001)
– Haller & Ralph (2001)
– Burnett & Pallab (1996)
– Hardin (2003)
DATA COLLECTION
Semi-structured in-depth Interviews
Two-stage process
 Second stage to clarify and explore issues raised in the
first interview
 Opportunity for participants to add to what was said in
first interview
ANALYSIS
– Hermeneutic Circle (Thompson, 1997; QuinnPatton, 2002)
– Parts to Whole
– Interviews in Isolation
– Look for patterns across interviews
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
– Experience of Advertising
– Experience of Disability
Experience of Advertising
– Participants had not connected commercial
advertising and disability prior to the research
– Identified advertising’s main goal as selling
– Contrary to Burnett & Pallab (1996) findings
– Advertising not only seen in negative light
– Advertising plays various roles for participants
“As most advertising is targeted at non-disabled
people, we can understand why the mobilitydisabled may resent advertising and consequently
find it useless” (Burnett & Pallab, 1996: 57)
– Critical Interpretations (Hirschman & Thompson, 1997)
“….these advertising images of beautiful people, fit people
you know that goes against, the majority of the world are
not like that, so I think advertising is a small group of
images which really do not reflect the actual real life
day-to-day experiences of people…so I think that people
would be more inclined to maybe engage in it if they
actually saw themselves in the ads, but I don’t think any
individual never mind disabled or non-disabled can
actually see themselves in advertising, because its
normally people who are beautiful, or who are
considered beautiful, you know,….” (Female, 30’s)
– Motivational Interpretations (Hirschman &
Thompson, 1997)
“…does it make me feel good watching that? It does and it
doesn’t cause their figures, I’ll probably say, oh yeah I’d love
to lose that weight you know, just looking at them…”
(Female, 32)
– Basis of social interations
– Between family members
– Between friends
– Between members of society
“..cause people talk about ads, you know, did you see
this ad, and you know, that interaction between
people, it gets people talking, it gets people thinking,
so advertising definitely has a role to play I
think…..” (Male, 20’s)
– Advertisers don’t consider disabled people to
be consumers
“….by including disabled people within the
advertising, its acknowledging the fact that they have
a part to play, that they are consumers and as
consumers they have to be addressed and if you’re
not obvious in advertising they’re sort of not
included as consumers and they’re seen to be poor
or whatever and they are pretty much poor or
whatever, but everyone still has some money to
spend on something…” (Female, 42)
– Hardin et. al (2003)
– Disabled people sensitive to positive integrated images of
disability in ads
– Disabled people would like to see advertisers include
disability images
– Both supported in the present study
– Describe how they would like to see advertising
change
“…I mean disabled people have babies and you have ads on
that and all the mothers are able-bodied, they should have
something like that…a disabled person with their child or
whatever it would, you know, make people more aware that
we can rear a family, do whatever, do everything…” (Female,
32)
– Images of disability
– Charity ads viewed negatively
– Impairment-related product ads
“…well of course from a feminist point of view, I was
thinking typical they always have bloody women,
you know, there wasn’t a good looking young man in
a pair of shorts in a chair, it was women, but fair
enough there could’ve been I just didn’t see that
brochure, but no I thought it was great…”
(Female, 30’s)
Experience of Disability
– More complex than expected
– Social model dominates
– Activists versus Non-Activists
“It is not that these informants are rejecting the social
model in favour of the medical model, they are
merely downplaying the significance of their
impairments as they seek to access a mainstream
identity” (Watson, 2002: 525)
CONCLUSION
– Advertising used in both marketing and nonmarketing sense
– Critical and Motivational Interpretations of the Ideal
Body
– Relate to Ads on different levels
– Negative Attitudes to Charity Ads
– More Analysis to do……….
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