A study on the media coverage of sports for the person with the intellectual disability

– A case study on the newspaper reports of the Special Olympics –

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the current state of, trends in, and a part of issues with the object of sports promotion in media coverage of sports for people with intellectual disabilities in Japan. Therefore, this was accomplished by applying media literacy analysis methodology to all newspaper reports to decipher “Image of people with disabilities” by media which values their keyword of “Diversity” during the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Nagano, Japan through the position of “Strategic and Cultural Model” in the “Disability Studies”, while recognizing the “Dissimilation” which is different from physically unimpaired, and it was regarded the Special Olympics as activities to aim for “Integration” in society. As it turned out following 2 points were revealed. First, as the method of press coverage of the Special Olympics, various press photographs were published as visual information. However, it became evident that these news photos caused enough contradiction = cognitive discrepancy of the “Media Text” while they had “Journalism Ethics” combining “Human Rights” and “Visibility with the Public”. Second, Sports activities for intellectual impaired adopting a strategy of “Differentiation – Inclusion” has tendency to “exclude” “sports performance” with intellectual impaired by media rather than achieving mainstream recognition of their respective performance as diverse existence. In present-day Japan aspiring to accept diversity, influent on social recognition by media coverage is quite important, these points require a continuing need to examine carefully through the position of sports promotion.