BM DS Blog 5

        


 I think that the Paralympic media coverage should be similar to the Olympic media coverage because the Paralympics are meant to run “parallel” to the Olympic games. This means that the Paralympics are just as equally important and valuable as the Olympic games are. Dr. Rob Shaw, Paralympic wheelchair tennis player, discussed in an interview that Paralympic athletes receive significantly less media coverage than Olympic athletes do. He mentions that from the opening and closing ceremonies of the Paralympic games, there are less in depth interviews of athletes and overall exposure, which decreases visibility for athletes and makes it hard to gain supporters, which so many athletes rely on. Dr. Shaw suggests that to help bridge this gap, the media should share more stories of Paralympians, including their backgrounds and athletic journeys, just the same as they do for Olympians. 

    
                                                                             Rob Shaw

Even though there are significant differences between media coverage of the Paralympics and the Olympics, the gap is slowly closing. We saw a major shift in media coverage in the Paris 2024 games, where more hours of the Paralympics were broadcast than ever before. For the first time ever, all 22 Paralympic sports were broadcast, and viewership was at an all time high. Even though this broke records, there were still clear disparities in the number of viewers between the games. For example, 15.4 million people watched the Paralympics nightly, while there were 31 million Olympic viewers nightly in the U.S.. Clayton Frech, a disability advocate shared that Paris really embraced the Paralympics when they hosted the games, and encouraged the United States to “catch up” in terms of their support for the Paralympics. 

                                                                                Clayton Frech

There is also a major issue in the overall portrayal of disability in the media. Many platforms portray people with disabilities as villains, “supercrips”, or helpless. For example, in the recent blockbuster movie, Wicked, Nessarose is the main character, Elphaba’s, younger sister. Nessarose is a wheelchair user, and for the first time ever, her character was played by an actress that also uses a wheelchair. This was a groundbreaking adaptation of the story because they attempted to be more inclusive, yet Nessarose plays a villain in the story. The original play was written decades ago, but it was written as the only wheelchair user in the story to be a villain. Many people criticized this, saying that having a disabled actress play her was long overdue, and others saying that it highlighted ableist comments from viewers. 

    
        
                                                    Actress Marissa Bode playing Nessarose 


Dr. Shaw touched on the issue of athletes being portrayed as superhumans. He emphasized that Paralympians do not want to be known for just overcoming obstacles due to their disabilities, but they want to be recognized for their athletic abilities and achievements, just like Olympic athletes are. 


https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/sports/athletes-at-paralympics-pursue-gold-not-platitudes.html 

(Article highlighting how “inspiration” is Paralympians least favorite word.” 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJZb5KBFWdw 

(An example of Paralympic media coverage of an athlete that highlights athletic ability with a personal interview)




Overall, I believe that the Paralympics should be covered to the same magnitude as the Olympics. They should receive the same funding and overall attention to achieve the end goal of the games being truly parallel to one another. 







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