Disability is not Inability

Exclusion is more comfortable for many editors

Exclusion is more comfortable for many editors, advert and film producers who do not see the market value of disability community. They are poor and without much economic power, their umbrella organisations are not strong enough to articulate such issues. In South Africa where disability movement is said to be most advanced in Africa, the calling of a person on a wheelchair of with physical disability "invalid" is common.

In Ghana a deaf man who for the first time in the history of Ghanian independence education finished a course in a polytechnic did not make news. The Mobil add used a hand which means "yes" in sign language. It hoped to encourage people to fill gas at Mobil and help educate a child with disabilities.

Theories about the influence of disability imagery the media uses or should use are awash in the developed countries. The theories however connect to one point. Who between persons with disabilities and general society should adjust to ensure harmony? Most definitions of disability believe that something is wrong with the community and this should be fixed first. Thus approaches such a medical or charity approaches are popular.

This too informs the media portrayal. Many believe that the media does not discriminate against the community, but only expresses what should be the norm. Thus somebody on a wheel chair is not considered normal enough to be identified with a society, company or product. So this person must be mordenised to represent body shapes considered normal to be accepted in the media.

In the developed economies, they have started arguing with the role persons with disability are given in movies, peradventure they perpetuate discrimination. Tanzanian local movie industry already has a movie expressing the discrimination of a lover with disability who has a relationship with a woman without disability.

The disability communities in both developed and developing countries still differ on how the media should express them. Depending on the levels of education, levels of legal awareness, levels of media relations, levels of economic status in the countries they live, the strength of their national organisations etc. Yet one thing is unanimous, there is need for some more respect and “positiveness”. There is need for freedom to live with a disability.