Published for the British Institute of Learning Disabilities

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 2015, 28, 319–329

Good, Bad or Absent: Discourses of Parents with Disabilities in Australian News Media Vikki Fraser* and Gwynnyth Llewellyn† *Australian Family and Disability Studies Research Collaboration, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia; †Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Accepted for publication 3 December 2013

Background News media frames public perceptions. As such, news media becomes a useful source of analysis to understand the presence (or otherwise) of people with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities, within parenting discourses in Australia. Method Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this article examines major Australian newspapers over the period from January 2004 to December 2008, critiquing the construction of parenting and disability. A small number of articles are examined in close depth for tone, polarity syntactic and paradigmatic choice, deconstructing the underlying discourses that shape the article and thereby popular perceptions of parenting and disability. Discussion Discourses of care and child protection are emphasized in news articles about parenting, creating

Introduction Popular perceptions are important in shaping social norms and values (Yanovitzky & Stryker 2001). This is well understood by disability activist movements that emphasize the disabling processes and politics of societies (Shakespeare 1994, 1998). However, little empirical work has been done to investigate perceptions of parenting by people with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities. Earlier work, due to publication dates, may not provide an accurate reflection of current perceptions of parents with intellectual disabilities, or the construction of this group within media discourses (Aunos & Feldman 2002). Mass media have a particular influence over political institutions and structures and are important sources of insight into the development and determination of political process (Fairclough 1998). For example, the © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

perceptions that negate the role of people with disabilities as parents. Such perceptions result in a systematic symbolic castration of people with intellectual disabilities from the role of parent in Australian society. Conclusion By providing a framework for understanding the public perceptions of parents with disabilities (particularly intellectual disabilities), this paper demonstrates that changes are necessary in Australian media reporting on parents with disabilities to bring such reporting more closely in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006. Keywords: disability, media, parenting

recent media attention on the introduction of a carbon tax in Australia demonstrates the ability of repeated news coverage to change the course of politics. Exploring this in relation to dissent, Cottle (2008) highlights that mass media is crucial to the overall success or failure of political activity. Take up of single issue politics by news media can, it is suggested, have the long-term effect of shifting the political sphere around that issue (Cottle 2008: 857–858). Similarly, Bonfiglioli et al. (2007: 57) highlight the impact of media attention on the increased status of obesity on the Australian policy agenda, however, stress that ineffectual media coverage can hamper the generation of long-lasting public support or change. The present authors argue that exploring the linguistic framing of parents with intellectual disabilities in news media offers an understanding of how people with intellectual disabilities are systematically removed 10.1111/jar.12142

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from ‘normalized’ social institutions – such as family and parenthood. This paper is part of a wider study that examines the role of media and policy in the construction of public perceptions of families where at least one of the parents has an intellectual disability. We focus on the construction and representation of parents, disability and intellectual disability in Australian print media to understand public perceptions and illustrate the potential for shifts within the discourses that surround parents with intellectual disabilities. Such shifts may create a societal perception that better accommodates the needs and aspirations of parents who have an intellectual or learning disability.

Background On the 18th of July, 2008, Australia became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (McClelland et al. 2008). This Convention recognizes the importance of societal perception in enabling (or disabling) people with disabilities, and the unique role of the media in the formation of public perception, awareness, respect and stereotyping. The Convention maintains that States parties should encourage: . . .all organs of the media to portray persons with disabilities in a manner consistent with the purpose of the present Convention. (United Nations 2006: Article 8, paragraph 2c) This indicates that the role of news media production in the formation of perceptions of disabilities is an important area of exploration. The representation of parent status as something worthy of examination is highlighted through the statement that people with disabilities are entitled to the same reproductive and social rights as others, including the right to marry and raise a family (United Nations 2006: Article 23). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities outlines that signatory States should: . . .take effective and appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities in all matters relating to marriage, family, parenthood and relationships, on an equal basis with others. . . (United Nations 2006: Article 23) Despite provisions for parenting rights and recognition for people with disabilities, parenting by

people with intellectual disabilities remains taboo. Parents with disabilities form one of the groups most frequently involved in child protection proceedings in Australia (McConnell et al. 2000) and, more often than not, face permanent separation from their children after child protection proceedings (McConnell et al. 2002). Parents with intellectual disabilities are less likely to receive support from family and friends throughout their pregnancy and post-natal period (Mayes et al. 2008), recognized as integral to family well-being and decreased adverse events (see McConnell et al. 2008). Broader discourses of parents with intellectual disabilities across public settings in several countries contest the ability of this group to effectively care for children, suggesting that the decision to parent should not be made by a person with intellectual disability (Sigurj onsd ottir & Traustad ottir 2000; Reinders 2008). As Aunos & Feldman (2002) note from a Canadian perspective, opinions exist within community sectors that people with intellectual disabilities are or should be devoid of sexuality and should not be able to parent. This perception is prevalent, despite growing knowledge of parents with intellectual disabilities who parent successfully (Tymchuk 1999; IASSID Special Interest Research Group on Parents & Parenting with Intellectual Disabilities 2008) and growing social and community support networks, bodies and programs that assist parents with intellectual disabilities in raising their children (www.healthystart.net.au; McConnell et al. 2008). Media representations of people with intellectual disabilities, people with disabilities more generally, and parents have the potential to influence wider perceptions of these groups as well as policy and service provision (Wilkinson & McGill 2009). Existing studies have emphasized the need to focus on times of social shifts in public awareness of disabilities (Wilkinson & McGill 2009). As such, the growing awareness of the shortcomings of services provided to parents with intellectual disabilities (McConnell et al. 2000, 2002; Mayes et al. 2008; Reinders 2008), as well as the recent attention to disability gained through the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities makes this current period a useful snapshot of the ways disabilities and parenting are perceived and constructed through Australian public discourses. This article focuses on the period from 2004, when a large investment of Federal Government Funding (Stronger Families and Communities) occurred to build capacity in support services for ‘at-risk’ parents (including parents with intellectual disabilities), to the © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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end of 2008, the year in which the Australian Government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (McClelland et al. 2008). Research into parents with intellectual disabilities has largely been located within health and disability studies disciplines. The focus of research has shifted from issues of ability (Mickelson 1947) – capability to raise a child – and impact (Feldman & Walton-Allen 1997) – the likelihood of physical or psychosocial harm for children raised by parents with intellectual disabilities – to support within a child rearing context (e.g. Llewellyn et al. 1998). However, only a small amount of research into the representations of people with disabilities in cultural institutions, including media, has been conducted to date (Yoshida et al. 1990; Shakespeare 1994; Philo 1997; Auslander & Gold 1999; Goggin & Newell 2004; Wilkinson & McGill 2009), with only a handful of articles focusing on media representations of intellectual disability (Carter et al. 1996). Many media analysis studies conducted to date have coincided with major shifts in public thinking around disabilities. Carter et al. (1996, p. 194) suggest that: Available research effectively offers snapshots of newsprint media treatment of disability-related issues at specific points in time. Recent studies coincided with worldwide attempts by disability advocates to emphasize people first patterns of reference rather than disability first or disability only language, as well as the introduction of legislation enforcing the rights of people with disabilities (e.g. Haller et al. 2006). Our focus is on linguistic and textual construction holistically within news media. In doing so, we identify that although legislative and sociolinguistic shifts have occurred that make more acceptable and visible particular types of disability, this is not necessarily the case for parents with intellectual disabilities. Haller et al. (2006) argue that new modes of reporting disability issues have resulted in the use of language that contests negative attribution and stereotyping. This shift, while minor in comparison with overall issues of visibility, indicates awareness among media producers of the role of language in the development and maintenance of social perception. However, while Haller et al. (2006) identify many of the positive implications of increased use of people-first language and positive reporting for people with disabilities generally, it remains the case that media reporting of © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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people with disabilities is far below the reporting of other population groups and disproportionate to expected figures (Carter et al. 1996). In collecting and identifying articles for this study, we observed that parents with disabilities were rarely mentioned in articles about parenting – seemingly contrary to expected representation in the society generally. According to Carter et al. (1996), gaining a greater sense through media representation of the numbers of people with disability within a society is as important as the correct use of language. Disproportionate representation potentially downplays the impact of disability (Carter et al. 1996). This has implications on the ability of a society to understand the intense need to address issues of discrimination, inclusion and support, which continue to be major issues for those living with disabilities (Productivity Commission 2011). Wilkinson & McGill (2009) highlight the impact of poor media coverage in the United Kingdom (UK). They identify that the majority of people in the UK are informed about a particular social group or issue by the media and that, therefore, the representations and coverage made by the media of disenfranchised groups are important to social change. Wilkinson & McGill (2009) identified that while there is increasing visibility of people with intellectual disabilities in the newspaper, this tends to occur only in very specific contexts – for example service provision. The specificity of the context in which intellectual disability is reported has strong implications on how receptive a society is to people with intellectual disabilities in different roles. Focusing on the types of language used by news media with regard to disability provides insight into the powerful role of language in the construction of stereotype and perception more broadly (van Dijk 1993). However, it is difficult to argue that the use of less negative, constraining, inappropriate or stereotyped language represents a positive shift in public perceptions of disability. The context of reporting, as well as the linguistic moves within media texts structure subjects in particular ways, potentially overshadowing naming Conventions (van Leeuwen 1993). As an example, if reports on people with intellectual disabilities as parents only focus on child abuse and neglect the discourses operating within the news report itself mean parenthood in the context is known and recognized only through the framework of child abuse and neglect. This paper draws on a feminist post-structuralist approach to the subject, which emphasizes that complex threads of power operate through discourse in ways

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that privilege certain groups over others (Foucault 1972; Fraser 1989; Butler 1997). Deconstruction of the identified articles shows how agency and objectification are utilized by news media to mobilize the privilege and legitimacy of the non-disabled within discourses of family, reproduction and care. Agency is important in these operations, as it is through the attribution of agency that subjects become knowable (Butler 1997). Shakespeare (1994) has examined agency and objectification in cultural representations of disability specifically, arguing that the development of (usually negative) social perceptions of people with disabilities comes from the tendency to represent people with disabilities as always passive, always object, always lacking agency and therefore always open to the meaning making of the artist or author (Shakespeare 1994). In the articles presented in this paper, agency and objectification are tools that unite the articles in their systematic symbolic castration of people with disabilities (specifically intellectual disabilities) from the role of parent by positioning them as passive objects within child protection discourses, absent from and subordinate to positions of care or responsibility.

Methodological Approach Major Australian newspaper articles published between January 2004 and December 2008 were searched using the digital newspaper repository Factiva. Search terms used are included in Table 1. Selected articles were analysed to identify key themes and referent discourses, following a critical discourse analytic approach (Fairclough 1992, 1998; Fairclough & Wodak 1997). Emerging themes and referent discourses identified in the articles were used to gain insight into the societal perceptions of parents with intellectual disabilities, with a view to developing modes of representation more encompassing of a holistic demonstration of the lives of people with intellectual disabilities in contemporary Australian society, including the position of successful parents.

A critical discourse analytic approach, as outlined by Fairclough (1992, 1998), is useful when exploring the impact of media discourse on social and political perception as it emphasizes a dual approach to the study of text and society (Fairclough 1998). Important to the aims of this study, critical discourse analysis also brings . . .a system of excessive inequalities of power into crisis by uncovering its workings and its effects through the analysis of potent cultural objects – texts – and thereby to help in achieving a more equitable social order. (Kress 1996: 15) As news media is one of the most dominant modes in which threads of social power are operated (McLuhan 1994), news media is also potentially one of the sites where inequalities are firstly made apparent, and better able to be challenged. Therefore, not only is it important in the study of media influence to focus on the representations given, but also to develop understandings of the ways in which these representations intersect with broader social structures, discourses and understandings (Fairclough 1998). In undertaking such an analysis, it is vital to focus on the complexities of textual and social construction, deconstructing emergent discourses and generic complexities to understand the operations of power and hegemony within texts and social bodies, and to suggest and activate change (Fairclough 1992). As such, the innocence of language is troubled and the subtle uses of word, frame, text and context are exposed as the sites and operations of power, hegemony and societal normalisation. As a tool, critical discourse analysis enables in depth focus on singular texts to develop understandings of the way language is used socially in the construction of meaning (Fairclough 1992). In deconstructing the operations of discourse within the newspaper articles exposed through the Factiva database, articles were initially organized into broader

Table 1 Number of articles by category

Search term category Total number of responses

Intellectual Disability (intellectual disability, mental retardation, learning disability)

Parenting combined with Intellectual Disability (‘intellectual disability, mental retardation, learning disability’ NEAR ‘parenting’)

Parenting (Parent, parenting, family)

Parenting and Intellectual Disability (Intellectual Disability AND Parenting)

817

703

305 000 +

16

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genres and themes to uncover trends developing with regard to parenting, disability and intellectual disability. These themes were disability and parenting, and the generic categories were news, special interest or advertising reports. Table 1 shows the initial numbers of results occurring in each of these categories, including the search terms used. Raw figures begin to highlight a distinction occurring between groups of articles within news print media. Notably, parenting with no reference to disability in the article accounts for the overwhelming majority of articles during this period. Articles combining the topics of parenting and disability are comparatively underwhelming in their number. A sample of articles were selected for analysis based on a similarity of context and discourse. The search was also extended to include parents with disability (using the search term ‘Parents’ AND ‘Disability’), in order to gain a sense of any differences between the media treatment of disability and parenting broadly and the treatment specifically of intellectual disability and parenting. New search results (from the parents with disability search) included parents with disabilities, parents on disability pensions and parents of children with disabilities. Therefore, all articles were collated into categories of parents of children with disabilities, and parents with disabilities. The decision was then made to examine sample articles about parents without disabilities, parents with intellectual disabilities and parents raising a child with a disability (including intellectual disabilities), although not all categories are included in this article. The sample was further refined through the removal of particular categories and types of article, such as advertising and articles from parenting magazines. Due to the timing of the study, a large number of articles about the collapse of childcare facilities and the resulting implications on parenting, government support, jobs and so forth emerged. These articles were also removed, however may be useful to analyse at a later date with regard to the construction of social attitudes around shared parental responsibility. Although the remaining sample was large, articles were discursively similar and it was decided that the category would be discussed as a whole, rather than using an individual sample article as a case study. Similar reductions were made in all categories, removing articles focusing on government subsidy and pensions, legislative changes and topics that did not examine a parenting situation. Articles were collectively analysed © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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in their thematic groups to gain an understanding of the linguistic and thematic trends emerging. Individual articles that best highlighted these trends were then selected for specific case study analysis in this paper. On identification of the dominant discourses underpinning the articles, child protection emerged as key. Within this discourse, themes of care and responsibility were obvious. The sample articles were deconstructed, with particular attention paid to syntactic and paradigmatic choices made in the article, including the polarity that emerged against particular concepts (e.g. whether or not the syntactic choices made by the author created a negative or positive polarity to the clause, sentence, paragraph or article), as well as where and why such choices were made and to what overall effect.

Results: Parenting, Intellectual Disability and Australian News Print Two articles have been selected to demonstrate the strength of the discourses and processes already mentioned. One from the broad thematic group of Parents with Intellectual Disabilities and one from the group Parents with Disabilities. We focus on the article from the Parents with Intellectual Disabilities group last, in order to develop a progressive approach to understanding. First, however, we provide a broad overview and discussion of the themes and contexts emergent in articles on parents and parenting. The dominance of textual processes that result in the systematic castration of people with disabilities from the role of parent is a key feature of each group of articles, despite broader differences. Castration has emerged through feminist post-structuralist and queer theory as an important way in which subjects are defined within society – the phallus being the site of power, privilege and belonging (Butler 1993; Benjamin 1995; Creed 1995). To lack or loose the phallus is to loose one’s position – and such loss can be brutal. Castration, in contemporary society, is often legal, surgical or lethal (Creed 1995: 93). Castration does not simply apply to bodies, and the phallus is not simply that physical or genital site of patriarchal power. Rather, symbolic castration can be focused on any site of perceived power and privilege within a society that dichotomises its members against each other – one having, one lacking. In the instance of contemporary society, the phallus becomes any such object where ownership of it defines ownership of power, privilege, recognition and belonging (Kimmel 1994). Therefore, the fast car, home ownership and

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family are all symbolic phalli (Thompson & Holt 2004) and the loss of such, whether through linguistic disassociation or physical/psychical removal, constitutes a symbolic castration. In Australian newsprint media, discourses of care are invoked in this process of castration – where the phallus is the immutable role of parent. Within articles on parents with disabilities, the use of care discourses enables a tacit invocation of child protection, even when child protection is not an explicit issue within the article. The discursive use of child protection acts as a sociolegal scalpel that removes and disassociates the ‘confusing’ parent (see Creed 1995) from the social picture of parent and family – at which apex sits the heteronormative, able-bodied and intellectually ‘normal’ adult.

Parenting The volume of articles returned from the searches that focus on parenting indicates this as a principal focus in Australia print media. Many of the articles collected in this were from regular weekly columns; in addition, numerous individual magazines and newspapers are dedicated to parenting and child rearing. The prevalence of advice columns and advertising reports indicates a perception that parenting is hard work, requiring high level skill sets and constant interaction with ‘experts’, who include child psychologists, manufacturers, child care workers, paediatric professionals of all types and, occasionally, other parents. Few parenting articles retrieved from this sample could be considered news reports. Advice columns generally took the form of question and response style interactions, where concerned parents write in with a question and have it answered by an ‘expert’ – usually a child psychologist, registered nurse or midwife. Opinion columns were often responses to either media debates or personalized situations. General interest or advertising reports focused on the opportunities that existed for parents to educate themselves or their children, services available to parents (including online advice, networking or support services) or parenting styles, including approaches to divorce management, food and nutrition, and discipline. News articles covering parenting, mostly engaged with paid parental leave, budgetary bonuses for parents, and child care budget issues. A small number of parenting news articles focused on issues of child abuse and neglect.

In applying a critical discourse analysis to media representations of parenting in parenting publications in the United States, Hoffman (2009) indicated that a vast majority of parenting advice literature focuses on negative aspects of parenting, such as stress and anxiety, creating particular responses to parenting among those exposed to this media. Similarly, in news media, these responses may be relevant to nonparenting communities also. It is our contention, supported through the literature (see Shakespeare 1994), that being presented with such consistent discussions of parenting in regularized columns, news and advertising reporting creates a perception within the general population that parenting is something that is newsworthy, constantly mediated and involving a process of continual interaction with ‘experts’ and educators. It is important to highlight that conflicting approaches to parenting exist within society and that these are reflected within news media. While parenting is regarded as being a highly skilled process, it is still expected that parents are to be held personally accountable, act independently and do so without assistance. The intercession of ‘expert’ bodies (except through media) is regarded as a failure to parent effectively (Colton et al. 1997; Scholte et al. 1999). The focus of a small number of news articles on abuse and neglect is pertinent to understanding the complex operations of power in the construction of parents as skilled labourers in a high stress environment. Constant advice is provided through print media on the ‘right’ ways to parent, promoting a model of parenting that privileges middle class parents with access to child care, parenting leave and high level (often high cost) support systems. These presentations are effectively juxtaposed to the presentation of news articles focusing on child abuse and neglect. This juxtaposition enables the threads of power inherent in the first set of articles to operate, by demonstrating what happens when parenting is extended to groups outside of the privileged group. In other words, the two sets of parenting articles highlight the dual construction of parenting as high skill on the one hand and on the other dangerous if performed by the ‘wrong’ people. Positioning parenting in the context of child abuse and neglect in news articles, and service provision in advice and opinion pieces, creates a sense of there being a right process to parenthood. This process is therefore emphasized as integral to effective parenting, constructing parenting as labour for which one must, effectively, be trained. It is not our intention to imply © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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that parenting is not high stress, or to deny that appropriate support structures would have helped in the child abuse and neglect cases outlined by news articles. Rather, our focus is to highlight the discourse of skill, care and training that operates through media articles concerning parenting, which is closely linked to discourses of child protection. Becoming aware of these discursive operations enables a closer understanding of the way parenting is already constructed within Australian newspapers, thereby creating the possibility for effectively deconstructing the reporting of parents with intellectual disabilities in particular ways.

Parents with disabilities Child protection, care and skill are fundamental discourses operating in the construction of good parenting. It is therefore possible to see the ways that similar discourses are used to remove people with disabilities from the role of parenting. Consider the article Help at hand to ease burden – Brendan takes lessons in life as disease steals his father away (Metcalf 2008). This article, published in The Courier Mail in December, 2008, explores the role of child carers following increased political attention during 2008. The article focuses on the story of a child carer, who is looking after his father. The father is described in the article as gradually experiencing more acute symptoms of Huntington’s Disease. The article itself focuses on the education services being received by Brendan to enable him to manage the household. However, discourses of care and child protection are invoked to linguistically create the perception that parents who have disabilities are inherently ‘bad’ for children. While the parent is not completely removed from the role of parenting in this article, the article begins a construction of parenting, care and childhood that equates physical disability with parental incapacity and the destruction of ‘the child’. This article contrasts the child with his father by highlighting shifting care roles within the household. Brendan, the child/carer, is an active and agential subject in the context of the article, while his father is largely positioned as object and inactive. Through this construction the article actively distances the parent with a disability from the traditional parental construct – as discussed in the previous section. The structure and reporting styles used in the article remove the father from traditional care dynamics, effectively swapping the presumed roles of father/child between the two figures. The article creates a contrast between the active and agential son, Brendan, with his passive and subjected © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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father through the headline and the first sentence of the article. The use of language that objectifies people with disabilities is an important aspect of the continued social perception that people with disabilities have no role as active agents within the social context (Shakespeare 1994; Carter et al. 1996; Haller et al. 2006). As such, the headline of the article, through the use of the phrase ‘disease steals his father away’ (Metcalf 2008: 28) positions the disease as agent and the father as passive object. Such positioning is continued through the son’s introduction. Consider the first two sentences of the article: Brendan’s future is unfolding before his bright, youthful eyes. The 11 year old Gaythorne boy is watching his father slowly but surely surrender to Huntington’s Disease, a degenerative condition which attacks the brain. (Metcalf 2008: 28) Here, Brendan’s agency is unquestioned – he watches and his father surrenders. His future unfolds, his father degenerates. While it is possible to argue that surrender is an active verb, ascribing agency, the use of dichotomous language is particularly important. While surrender implicitly invokes action, this action is subordinate to the privileged position of attack. Therefore, surrender becomes a subordinate verbal object in the context of the disease and the father’s agency is therefore subordinate to the agency of the disease. The construction of the father as object of the disease further removes the potential of the father to be recognized as father; rather he is the object of illness and object of his son’s care. The objectification of the father in the context of the son’s care is contextualized by the construction of Brendan as the responsible figure within the household: . . .Brendan is being taught to run the house so he can take care of his dad as the incurable genetic disease unravels. (Metcalf 2008: 28) The father here becomes knowable only in the context of disease and his son. This construction further juxtaposes this father and son dynamic with what it ‘should’ be. The father’s representation is constructed within the framework of lack – he lacks the capability to care for himself and the household. These capabilities are constructed within the parenting discourse as essential to effective parenting. Many parenting articles identified in this study focus on parents keeping well, maintaining the home, and caring for themselves as

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much as their child. As such, by not doing these inherently ‘parental’ things, the father lacks parental capacity, and Brendan is forced to assume this role as a result. Adult/child and carer/cared for binaries are stabilized and enforced through such representations. In this situation, the child as carer is necessarily constructed against the adult as cared for in a way that renders the adult as inactive and lacking. The language used in the article highlights a process of symbolic castration – the lines of parent/child become too confusing and so are dealt with. The primacy of one is re-established, however not in the body that causes the confusion. The parent cannot, so the child must. The child, through this process and the attribution of lack to the parent, can no longer be child, and therefore becomes parent. This is further enforced through the construction of Brendan’s carer role against his child role, through the comparison of him with other children. Other children play, Brendan cares. This article utilizes discourses of care to juxtapose the role of Brendan as carer/child with that of his father as cared for/parent. This juxtaposition and the use of care reiterate the removal of the father from active positioning and therefore construct him as absent. This absence from the role of parent/carer not only constructs the parent as object (a stark contrast to the active role of parent emphasized in parenting articles more generally), but actively removes the possibility of the person with a disability from being a complete parent. While the father in this article is not completely absent, the emphasis on his lack and de-positioning begins a process of removal and creates perceptions that parents with disabilities are inherently absent, or almost absent, from effective parenting roles. As Cockburn (2005) stresses, there is a tendency to ignore the cared for and valorize the carer in care discourses, and this risks trivializing and removing the complex structure of relationality that makes visible and valuable all parties in the situation of care (Nolan et al. 2003).

Parents with intellectual disabilities One article over the period specifically discussed a parent with an intellectual disability. While a number of responses had been yielded for searches on parents and intellectual disability, the majority of these articles focused on general child protection issues. In such articles, intellectual disability was only mentioned in the context of a list of potential ‘at-risk’ parenting situations. This in itself is interesting, as it immediately constructs

parents with intellectual disabilities as dangerous and only knowable within the context of child protection, neglect or abuse. Such constructions are continued through the one specific article found, which focused on court proceedings for a parent identified as having an intellectual disability. Disabled Dad Denied Son Access (Pedler 2006: 3), describes the findings of a Western Australian Family Court hearing into the access a father with an intellectual disability had to his son. The article describes the 10-year suit of a man with an intellectual disability for visitation rights, and the final ruling of the family court against such access. The headline of the article is particularly interesting in the construction of meaning for the audience. In this instance, the word order and language choices made by the author create a perception that contrasts with the tone of the news story reported. While initially the article appears to be sympathetic to the father, the tenor of the headline, created through paradigmatic choice, creates particular viewpoints of the father. The article constructs the father as an object of pity, regarded by Shakespeare (1994) as a negative construction of the disabled subject as a mad or sad object. However, the choice made to remove the word ‘to’ from the headline fundamentally changes its meaning. By removing the word ‘to’, the father is no longer passive object but rather active subject – no longer the object who has no access to his son, but now the subject who denies his son access. ‘To’ is, in this sentence, a clarifying conjunction that correctly associates the verbal group to the actor. Without the word ‘to’, the predicate of the sentence becomes ‘denied son access’, with the father as subject/agent, rather than the court. As a result, its removal creates a paradigmatic shift that invokes the discourse of child protection around a seemingly ‘mad, bad or sad’ parent within the family court (Naylor 2001). The article continues the presentation of the parent with intellectual disability as fundamentally different to and less desirable than non-disabled parents. The linguistic dichotomy between these two groups operates through juxtaposed presentations of the mother and the father. This dichotomy emphasizes a framework of lack and harm through which parents without intellectual disabilities are privileged and parenting with an intellectual disability unimaginable. Examples of such dichotomies occur through the adjectives ascribed to the two parents in the case: the mother is ‘simplistic’, the father is ‘intellectually disabled’ (Pedler 2006: 3). While the adjective simplistic invokes discourses of naivety © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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and innocence (at risk rather than perpetrating danger), the term ‘intellectually disabled’ invokes a historic discourse of disability and abhorrence – as a threat or risk (Yoshida et al. 1990; Shakespeare 1994; Philo 1997; Wilkinson & McGill 2009). Likewise, while simplicity is often associated as having inherently good qualities, not a denial of capabilities, the linguistic and social history drawn on by the use of the ‘intellectually disabled’ as a nominal group prescribes the father as lacking capability. While we have demonstrated in the previous section the way that this is performed progressively for parents with disabilities, the pre-existing social perceptions of disability, as well as the sociolinguistic history inherently structured into the word means that the castration of the father from the role of parent is achieved instantaneously through the nominal use of his status as a person with intellectual disability. Lack, in the context of the articles discussed in this paper, becomes representative of a deficit of structures that create safety, whether they are adequate knowledge, surveillance, financial backing, support et cetera. Lack becomes the very marker of danger that operates within the child protection discourse. As such, the lack attributed to the father through the article creates intellectual disability as negative and subordinate within a simplicity/disability binary. This enables the use of the adjective simplistic to be ascribed positively to the mother, and linked in an unproblematic way to concepts of provision and responsibility: Justice Penny described the mother, the boy’s primary carer, as simplistic but said she was a responsible parent who provided well for her son. (Pedler 2006: 3) While this is a paraphrased quote from the courtroom, the framing of the statement in relation to descriptions of the father work to dichotomise the different positions of the actors as mother/carer/ simplistic to father/non-carer/disabled. This enables a child protection discourse to operate, as descriptions of the father continually reference pre-existing associations of intellectual disability with precariousness and danger, specifically in the context of children. The emphasis on lack throughout this article is particularly important when it is considered that a majority of the article focuses on condemnation of the court decision. When ‘expert’ opinion is provided to support the father’s case, this opinion is also framed within lack discourses. The father, as a parent with an intellectual disability, is described as needing support – © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 28, 319–329

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a need not attributed to the mother. Therefore, the father is again lacking one of the fundamental capabilities of being a parent, that is acting without support, which it is assumed the mother has inherently. In the contemporary social context, parenting is viewed as a largely independent process and certainly outside of the domain of non-family assistance, which is regarded and used as a sign of poor parenting ability (Naylor 2001). Framing the support needs of parents with intellectual disabilities in such a way strengthens the operation of negative attributions towards the father. However, it must be recognized that the article simultaneously constructs the father as unrecognisable within the context of parent while at the same time challenging dominant and media perpetuated discourses of parents with disabilities as disinterested or absent.

Discussion: Shifting the Framework The construction of parenting within the context of Australian major newsprint media provides an insight into the ways in which parents with intellectual disabilities are actively excluded from the role of parent. Power, operating through discourses of care, neglect and child protection, works to privilege the ‘able’ parent, automatically subordinating parents with disabilities to a dichotomized position of lack and need. Mobilization of privilege away from parents with physical, mental or intellectual disability within news media results in parents with intellectual disabilities being unknowable, except in the context of the family court and child protection hearings. While it can be argued that news media is sensational and therefore focuses on negative reporting to maintain entertainment value (Yoshida et al. 1990; Naylor 2001; Haller et al. 2006), the fundamental differences in the presentation of parenting and the presentation of parents with disabilities indicates that an active construction of parenting is at work that excludes and marginalizes parents with disabilities. While this may not be deliberate, it is important to recognize this construction, as well as the role of news media in the perpetuation of privilege and exclusion. In recognizing the fundamental role of news media in exclusionary discourses of parenting, and the stabilisation of stigma and stereotypes of the parent with disability (Yoshida et al. 1990; Carter et al. 1996; Wilkinson & McGill 2009) a shift is needed in reporting frameworks for Australia to realize the responsibility that comes with ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

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As well as greater inclusion of parents with disabilities (particularly intellectual disability) in interest articles, a greater awareness of the context and paradigmatic choices of articles is needed to ensure that parents with disabilities are not known only through discourses of lack and need. While various other media sources, such as newsletters and specialist press, are beginning to focus on positive aspects of the parenting processes of people with intellectual disability (Anonymous 2007; Llewellyn et al. 2010), mainstream media continues perpetuate the perception that people with intellectual disabilities are incapable of parenting. A move away from sensationalism in reporting, along with greater recognition of the diversity of parenting positions is sorely needed within Australian media to adhere to the United Nations Convention.

Limitations The timing and scope of this study coincided with increased focus of news media on issues of child care services due in part to the collapse of the proprietary child care group ABC. There was also a large focus on parental and maternity leave provisions as these had become a focus of parliamentary and social debate at the time. We have no doubt that to undertake a similar study now or at another point of history would potentially yield different results. That said, this study and related discussion has provided a way of examining news media to highlight the powerful and potentially injurious ways that language can be mobilized for the creation of public perception and the continuation or cessation of marginalisation.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to extend their special thanks to Tom Shakespeare, Gabrielle Hindmarsh, Anne Honey, Nikki Wedgewood, Rachel Mayes and other members of the AFDSRC for their assistance and feedback in developing this paper. This study was funded by Healthy Start: A National Strategy for Children of Parents with Learning Difficulties.

Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Vikki Fraser, Australian Family and Disability Studies Research Collaboration, The University of Sydney, PO Box 170, LIDCOMBE, NSW, 1825 Sydney, NSW, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]).

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