Abstract
According to several studies, Paralympic athletes tend to be portrayed by the media as victims of their impairments and/or as superheroes/supercrips. This article analyzes the perception of athletes and former athletes with visual impairment about how they are portrayed by the media. We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured and in-depth interviews with five athletes and two former athletes with visual impairment. We found that respondents do not identify themselves as “poor things” and do not approve of relating disability to suffering. We also found that there is no consensus on the superhero/supercrip approach. Our conclusion is that the media should not reproduce one perspective or another because they do not match the reality of people with visual impairment and tend to perpetuate stigmas and prejudices against them.
Keywords
Paralympic sport; Vision disorders; Social medias