What We Aren’t Seeing Exclusionary Practices in Visual Media

Abstract

Disability in visual culture is arguably flawed, with ideas and concepts created and accepted in the vacuum of ableist, capitalist environments. “Disability has always been part of the human condition,” write art historians Keri Watson and Jo Mann. “Through- out history, people with disabilities have often served as visual and cultural objects, rather than as active participants in and creators of culture and media.”1 Mimi Ọnụọha, Catherine D’Ignazio, Lauren Klein, and other scholars establish that visual media have the power to communicate injustices, evoke uncomfortably necessary conversations, and raise the volume on silenced voices.2 Recent scholarship and strategies have focused on visual media under the lens of misinformation and misrepresentation with the aim of training visual consumers’ palates to distinguish propaganda from critical discourse.3 Missing from this mainstream dialogue is that visuals can be equally exclusionary and harmful to persons with disabilities. Information educators play a role in disrupting the assumed perceptions around disability and can challenge situations where common remediations fall short, where barriers are introduced, and where damaging stereotypes are perpetuated.