Meeting The Superhumans: Channel Four, Disability and the 2012 Paralympic Games Carolyn Elizabeth Jackson-Brown PhD Document 87,600 words Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisors: Professor Bethany Klein Dr. Nancy Thumim The University of Leeds School of Media and Communication March 2018 Declaration of Authorship The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Carolyn Jackson-Brown to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2018 The University of Leeds and Carolyn Jackson-Brown. 1 Acknowledgements Thank you to all the producers, executives and technicians who spared me their time and gave such valuable frank accounts of their roles in the London 2012 Paralympics media coverage. I appreciate very much your openness and your willingness to take part in the project. This thesis would not have materialised had it not been for the patience and insight of my two supervisors, Professor Bethany Klein and Dr. Nancy Thumim. I would like to thank them wholeheartedly for their support and their ability to keep me on track. Our monthly meetings have been a mainstay of my academic development, challenging my thought processes on a regular basis. I could not have come this far without them and I shall miss our sessions. I need also to thank Bettys Tea Rooms in Harrogate, for allowing me to play their piano in public for several hours twice a week. Quite aside from the music and the chance to unwind, it was Bettys’ customers who triggered my research enquiry in the first place. They chatted and joked when the London 2012 Paralympics was on TV, and made me want to get to the bottom of why attitudes about disability in our café had changed. I also need to thank Bettys for the copious amounts of delicious caffeine they supplied, without which this thesis would not be complete either. The culture in the Leeds Media and Communication department, known as ICS when I started, provided depth and support, and I am so grateful to all the colleagues and staff. Our PhD room on arrival had wonderful second, third and fourth years who were ahead of us, and I shall never forget any of them. But most especially I thank my own dear cohort, Andreas, Jen, Carly, Lone, Yinyi, Charlotte and Yi. You chaperoned me through, along with Ysabel who graduated first, inspiring us all to keep up the pace. Now the light at the end of the tunnel has appeared I can only thank my lovely wife Sasha for fielding so many convoluted conversations, putting up with that much stress and losing all those weekends. Finally, thank you to my two sons Mark and James for reminding me over and again ‘keep writing, mum, you’re nearly there!’ which I wasn’t, until now. 2 3 Abstract Channel Four’s media coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games is said to have delivered a seismic shift in attitudes towards those with disabilities. But why and how was a marginalised group brought into the mainstream by the media? What were the influencing factors and who made the decisions? By interviewing key people involved in the television production process, and accessing some of their internal documentation, my doctoral research sheds light on how meanings about disability were constructed and delivered, from the top down and across the creative workflow. Drawing on elements of both cultural studies and political economy, this thesis investigates the complex and entangled production mechanisms asking why, how and what representations of disability were promoted by the decision-makers and communicated as their preferred meanings. Using Hall’s theory of constructivist encoding, influences on representation and meaning are analysed through the theoretical lenses of the critical political economy, disability theory and Goffman’s conceptualisations of stigma management. I also examine how sporting tropes and programme formats were used and adapted to reduce the stigma of ‘otherness’ and bring a marginalised group into the mainstream. Channel Four’s unique funding model, and risk-taking remit, are repeatedly under review and this project explores the relationship between the channel’s commercial, industrial and organisational contexts alongside individual agency and creative constraints. The study provides a systemic perspective, separating institutional influences and individual influences from the surrounding commercial environment, to map how each of these trigger adaptive changes in each other. 4 5 Table of Contents Declaration of Authorship ............................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... 1 Abstract ........................................................................................................ 3 Table of Contents ........................................................................................... 5 List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................... 9 Objectives .................................................................................................. 10 Theoretical framework ............................................................................... 14 Research questions ................................................................................... 18 Chapter synopsis ....................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2 Literature Review ........................................................................ 25 Representation and the production of meaning ....................................... 27 A constructed spectacle of the stereotyped ‘other’ ............................. 29 Production, producers and power ........................................................ 33 Disability studies and the Paralympics ..................................................... 36 Revulsion, invisibility and supercrips ................................................... 37 The ‘social model’ and access to production....................................... 45 Televised sports mega-events .................................................................. 48 Collective identities and inspiration porn ............................................. 51 Commercialisation, marketing and branding ....................................... 53 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 57 Chapter 3 Research Design and Methods ................................................. 61 Making a case for studying media production .......................................... 61 An account of my methods ........................................................................ 67 Ethics, consent and data protection .......................................................... 79 Analysis ...................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 4 Enabling Risky Representations: the Industrial Context ...... 87 Funding mechanism .................................................................................. 88 Organisational structure ............................................................................ 97 Parliamentary remit ................................................................................. 107 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 116 Chapter 5 Normalising Disability: Encoding Meanings ......................... 119 ‘Show the sport’ or ‘show the stumps’? .................................................. 121 6 Which stereotype to use? ....................................................................... 137 Not ‘victims’ ........................................................................................ 139 Nearly ‘superheroes’ .......................................................................... 144 Let’s call them ‘superhumans’ ........................................................... 150 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 157 Chapter 6 Reframing Disability: Adapting the Programme Formats... 159 Magazine format...................................................................................... 162 Sports coverage ...................................................................................... 170 Documentary format................................................................................ 183 Topical satire/review programme ........................................................... 190 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 195 Chapter 7 Embedding Disability: Marketing Branded Meanings ......... 199 The marketing strategy ........................................................................... 202 Commercial objectives ....................................................................... 212 How brands were shared, borrowed, repaired and created .................