DOCUMENT PESONE ED 179 962 CS 205 305 AUTHOR Hurd, Gene TITLE Aged and Handicapped Seek Human Quality and Public Service in Media: Mass Communications Patterns of the New Minorities. PUB DATE Aug 77 NOTE 23p.: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism (60thr Madison, WI, August 21-24, 19771 EDBS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Activism: Blacks: Civil Bights: Exceptional Persons: *Handicapped: *Mass Media: Media Research: *Minority Groupp: *Older Adults: Organizational Communication; OrganizatIons (Groups): Physically Handicapped: Public Opinior: *Social Attitudes ABSTRACT A similarity exists in the way minority groups in the sixties and in the seventies used media coverage to achieve recognition. The poor and the blacks in the 1960s and the aged and the handicapped in the 19705 turned to the media as they sought freedom to move, rejected separation and isolation, and sought access and independence by breaking the barriers of accommodations and architecture. The results ef a year-long sampling of stories in major big-city daily newspapers point out that the new minorities of the aged and the handicapped are accumlating media coverage in the areas of community development, economics, humitn.and group relations, power and resources, and envirorment and ecology. Minority stereotypes are being rejected in books and on television, and a new iosition of respect for the aged and the tandicapped is being promoted by politicians. In the future, other fragmented minorities, particularly those with physical limitations, will also insist that their needs be heard.(ALA) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDPS are the best that can be made from the original document. IC *********************************************************************** fika. AGED AND HANDICAPPED SEEK HUMAN QUALITY ANDPU#I$IC SERVICE IN MEDIA --Mass.Communications Patterns of the NewMinorities-- U S. DEPARTMENTOP HEALTH. EDUCATION &VIELU "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS NATIONAL INSTITUTEOF by EDUCATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY 1 HIS DOCUMENTHAS BEEN REPRO- Gene Burd Gene Burd AS RECEIVEDFROM DUCE() EXACTLYORGANIZATION ORIGIN- THE PERSON OR Al ING ft POINTSOF VIEW OROPINIONS University of Texas at Austin NOT NECESSARILYREPRE- ST ATE D DO OF SENT OFFICIALNATIONAL INSTITUTE POSITION OR POLICY Journalism'E DUCA T ION TO THE EDUCA1 IONAL RESOURCES Association fJr Education in INFORMATION CiATER (ERIC) Qualitative Studies Division - University of Wisconsin-Madison August 20-24, 1977 There is an apparent similarity betweenthe media usage by civil r\J .C)rights groups in the Sixties and the agedand handicapped in the Seven- CY% ties. The social and physicaldisadvantage experienced by racial and ethnic groups is likewiseexperienced by the old and disabled who have also been C.7.) comparison of their communica- LOrestricted and segregated. An exploratory tions and media habits may be useful in explainingthe nature of minori- ties and the media during social change. In the early 1960s, the poor andBlacks sought advantages long de- died than. Racism and Black Panthersmade the headlines. Blacks fought to ride in front of buses and to gain access toother public places, and they marched on Washington with other poor to gain access tocommunica- tions channels which had previously left them outof the mainstream of American life. By the 1970's it was Ageism and the Gray Panthers, and handicapped demanding integration into the mainstream and therights to jobs and equal opportunity. Men a national coalition of disabled andthe elderly filed a law suit requiring accessiblebuses, the President of Disabled in Action in Pwinsylvania remarked: "Ten years agocourt action made it possible for Blacks to sit anywhere on the bus.We're not asking for P) any special place to sit. We just want tobe able to get on the bus in the first place." The poor's Tent City' in Washington has been replaced by 0 mule wagons-parked on the White House lawn forappeals to President page 2 2 Carter about senior citizensand the handicapped. Both sets of minorities have soughtfreedom to move. Both have rejected separation and iriolation andsought access and independence by breaking the barriers of bothaccommodations and architecture. The , passivep1411widtureof the centenarian as an oddityand the equally rare Black or handicapped "Horatio Alger" wasmedia access of the past. However, the Golden Agers and wheel chair basketball players +=news pages are not now sufficient asmedia public service to the estimated 26 million elderly and handicapped. Sign language for the deaf and braille forthe blind and television sets for the nursing homes are nowonly one part of the mediasurvival kit for these new minorities. Nowactive and'militant, they see the media of communications to be used bythemselves _instead of being Ised by the media. They also see themedia as tools to change the society and the viiw of them held by others.The new minorities therefore have attempted to bring about chancy-. by accessto setting the publicagenda; by changing old stereotypes and-!reating new images to create a new awareness;and by utilizing media forms forthe purpose of advocacy. Public Agenda for New Minorities in Mass Society Increase in the number of aged and ht.ndicapped is attracting the mass medic, which seescorsumersthe market basket; while politicians 3 see the ballot box andvoters--52 million aged by the year 2030, end millions more physically handicapped thanks to the blessings and curse of modern medicine and technologv both end and extend life. The newspaper series anmagr.7ine article on the a(3ed z.,re row common.4 The campus sympol;la tfle sinior citizen and the gerontology 5- convention arc common as the civil rights rallyin the 1960s. Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Icehas been replaced by psychiatrist Robert Butler's 1976 Pulitzer Prizebook _IIVIL_LLIE171.11,12ilialia America. Students are hearing the newCleaver preach about Jesus, while page 3 campus unions hold sessions on death anddying, and protesters picket- . for mental health liberation. Youth realize they may eventually become 6 part of the fastest growing minority, as they show conuern for the prob- lems of the aged and other handicapped .........EGroiaa_214_12.the COuntry of_ 7 the Young. The media agenda may well have shifted from spotlight on youth to those growing older and from mere quantity of life to quality of life, a media phrase of the Swienties. 'in The ass5ELELItt29211%, as John Aldridge put it in his criticism of youth in theSixties, youth were materialistic and ". .although they are passiohate about causes ahd issues---especially as these relate to the quantitative material problems of society, they are strangely indifferent to the questions of 8 quality. ." But that may be changing as the Young grow older. Indeed, "The Free SDeech and People's Park struggles are long gone, but Berkeley has become a mecca for a new, equally radical movement-- the growing numbers of handicapped people. "9whowere encouraged when a quadriplegic was admitted to the university against its willin 9 1962. In other cities, "The first major legislation barring discrimin- ation against the handicapped may prove to be as pervasive and contro= versial as civil rights lawr prohibiting minority and sexdiscrimina- 10 tion." If campus concerns for civilrights in the Sixties and the ecological quality of life in theSeventies both affected the media's public agenda in these decades then the 1980s may for the new minor- ities seeking quality ratherthan mere quantity of life. In nine basic, functional community area3, alook at the crisis and problem agenda in the pressindicates that the new minorities are indeed "making the news" from nursinghome scandals to sex deprivation of the physically handicapped. Asampling by the author of stories in major big city dailies over a one-yearperiod shows that the new minor- ities are accumulating content on the"minority beat" in the areas of community devel_opment,economics, human and grouprelations, power and resources, environmentand ecology. Items nowaippearing on the media's minority agenda for the aged and handicappedinclude the following: Coimnunit DevelopmentDesiqn and Plannin:ardhitectural barriers Ti imPeaiments, special ramps,wa1kiays, elevators, phones, water fountains, restrooms;customhomes and special housing:village re- tirement,"sun cities",group homes,hostels;pUblic and institutional- central ized hous'_a, segregation,concentration and isolation in inner cities,SROs(single roomoccupancy),cheap rooming houses,lax building code enforcement,SkidRowytenant and communitydiscrimina- tion in housing,restrictivecovenants,zoning exclusions,seeing-eye. dogs in apartments,alarmsystems. Economic Problems:jobdiscrimination, re-training andplacement, affirmative action, early retirement;living costs, pensions, wel- fareepublic assistance, socialsecurity;tax advaatages,discounts (fares, food stamps,rent,utilities)free checking accounts: Human and GroupRelations: participation inOrganizations and groups, socialand institutionalisolation;nursing homes, foster homes for adultswarehousesfor handicapped;quadriplegics asparents; adoptions by handicapped;crime,safety and the aged andhandicapped/ sex aAd seniorcitizens, sexual deprivation ofphysically disadvan- taged,retarded and reproductionlnewroles for grandmothers,uncles. Power, Government : agencyfunds for aged and handicapped,court TrirgiERTE-E6F-EIVil rights, equalopportunities,affirmative