In this study we examine to what extent people with disability participate in television news and how they are represented. We chose to examine one broadcast per day of SVT Public Service news program Rapport and commercial channel TV4 Nyheterna (TV4 News) during one month using quantitative content analysis and qualitative discourse analysis. We found that people with disability are underrepresented in television news. In Rapport only 1,9 percent of the total broadcasting time contained people with disability and in TV4 Nyheterna 3 percent of the total broadcasting time contained people with disability. In the news people with disability were often represented as stereotypes, most commonly as victims. The focus was often on the medical aspect of the disability and on the problems that people with disability had. Through our qualitative analysis we found that television news discriminated people with disability in almost all of the news features by representing them as passive and not individuals but as representatives of the group “people with disability”.

<p>In this study we examine to what extent people with disability participate in television news and how they are represented. We chose to examine one broadcast per day of SVT Public Service news program Rapport and commercial channel TV4 Nyheterna (TV4 News) during one month using quantitative content analysis and qualitative discourse analysis.</p><p>We found that people with disability are underrepresented in television news. In Rapport only 1,9 percent of the total broadcasting time contained people with disability and in TV4 Nyheterna 3 percent of the total broadcasting time contained people with disability. In the news people with disability were often represented as stereotypes, most commonly as victims. The focus was often on the medical aspect of the disability and on the problems that people with disability had. Through our qualitative analysis we found that television news discriminated people with disability in almost all of the news features by representing them as passive and not individuals but as representatives of the group “people with disability”.</p>