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Disability Issue Resonance: Mobilizing Community through Public Discussion

Explore how public rhetoric shapes disability conversations, key actors, and effects on community mobilization. Analyze cases from Russian media (2006-2012) using social constructivism and hate speech frameworks.

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Disability Issue Resonance: Mobilizing Community through Public Discussion

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  1. Disability issue in the space of public discussion: “resonant case” as the factor of community mobilization VolhaVerbilovich PhD student Sociology Department, HSE Supervisor: Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova

  2. Research Questions • How the disability issue appears in the public discussion? • What rhetoric dominates? • Who performs as key actors and what effects of the discussion can be observed?

  3. Research framework • Theoretical and methodological principles of social constructivism (G.Blumer, M. Spector, J.Kitsuse) • Mass-media as public arenas -> social problems are constructing and claiming to be important by particular actors of the discussion. (S.Hilgartner, Ch. L. Bosk) • “Hate speech” (“язык враждебности») (J.Butler) -> community mobilization (T. Shakespeare, N. Fraser)<- “performative action” in public sphere (J. Habermas, H.Arendt, J.Butler)

  4. Selected cases • The selected cases are the public scandals in mass media in 2006-2012 that articulate disability issues in mass-media • Dec 14, 2006 – TV-show “Let them talk”, discussion of Russian pop-band “Tatu” music composition “LyudiInvalidy” (European counterpart “Dangerous and Moving”) • 2009-2010 – popular Russian tabloid “Speed-Info” article “Finish Them Off, So They Don't Suffer“ by A. Nikonov • Oct, 2012 – Radio Mayak case, dismissal of popular radio hosts Victoria Kolosovaand Alexei Veselkin, who ridiculed terminally ill children live, during a program on medicine and diseases (cystic fibrosis).

  5. Discussion: rhetoric, actors and effects 2012 2012 - Russia ratified the UN Convention 2009-2010 2008 - Russia signed the UN Convention 2006

  6. Key findings • Russian mass-media are still preserving the manipulative manner of disability issues representation • Journalists as “mediators” of the discussion still tend to follow traditional prejudices and rhetoric of “scare”, “pity”, “unwanted or useless citizens” • The rational-critical potential of the discussion is low, initial actors of the discussion are in confrontation

  7. Key findings • The state and power institutes appropriate to themselves the possibility of defining “hate speech” and the limits of acceptable discourse (J.Butler, M. Foucault) in diverse time and legislative contexts <- before and after UN Convention on People with Disability Rights ratification in Russia (2008-2012)

  8. Key findings • Although the processes of identity forming are distorted by manipulative strategies of mass-media representations of people with disabilities, the public sphere of disability is becoming more visible, promoting emancipatory interests and positions of people with disabilities

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