Portrayals of Autism in the British Press: A Corpus-Based Study

Autor/inn/en	Karaminis, Themis; Gabrielatos, Costas; Maden-Weinberger, Ursula; Beattie, Geoffrey
Titel	Portrayals of Autism in the British Press: A Corpus-Based Study
Quelle	In: Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice, 27 (2023) 4, S.1092-1114 (23 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Karaminis, Themis)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1362-3613
DOI	10.1177/13623613221131752
Schlagwörter	Autism Spectrum Disorders; Newspapers; Mass Media Role; Attitudes toward Disabilities; Political Influences; Language Patterns; Language Usage; Morphemes; Males; Change; Diversity; Foreign Countries; United Kingdom + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Autism; Autismus; Newspaper; Zeitung; Political influence; Politischer Einfluss; Sprachmodell; Sprachstruktur; Sprachgebrauch; Morphem; Male; Männliches Geschlecht; Wandel; Ausland; Großbritannien
Abstract	Press representations of autism and autistic people both reflect and help shape public attitudes towards autism and neurodiversity and may establish critical barriers to social integration for autistic individuals. This study examined such representations in UK newspapers in the period 2011-2020 using a corpus-based approach. It also considered how press representations changed over time and differed with regard to reporting style (tabloids vs broadsheets) and political orientation (left- vs right-leaning). We created the "Autism UK Press Corpus," which included all documents ([approximately]24K) referring to autism in 10 national newspapers. We used document counts (normalised by newspaper size) to assess the 'newsworthiness' of autism. We also employed a synergy of corpus-based and critical-discourse-analysis methodologies to study lexicogrammatical patterns and uncover explicit and implicit attitudes towards autism. Our results showed that the coverage of autism increased slightly over time, especially in broadsheets and left-leaning newspapers. Newspapers emphasised adversities associated with autism, often used negative language, and tended to focus on boys. These representations shifted gradually towards more difference-based descriptions and included more diverse age/gender groups, especially in broadsheets and left-leaning newspapers. We discuss the broad implications of these findings for the autism community and those interested in a more inclusive society. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01