IMAGES OF DISABILITY IN NEWS MEDIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH By Beth Haller, Ph.D. Much good mass media research has focused on how U.S. print and broadcast media can better diversify their news coverage in terms of: * ethnic communities, * gender/ sexual orientation, * even age. However, even in the 1990s little research has focused how local media can more often and more accurately cover the disability community and disability issues. Yet, people with disabilities and their families are becoming a much more vocal and visible segment of American society. Types of past topical coverage issues: In the 1970s, some rehabilitation researchers saw that news was a strong cultural indicator and had influence on societal treatment of disability issues. A few turned some of their attention to the impact of news media coverage on their clients. 1 Bogdan and Biklen's seminal work explaining the concept of "handicapism" began to be applied to studies of news media coverage of disability. 2 2 3