Riley II, Charles A. Disability & the Media: Prescriptions for Change. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2005, 244 pages, Hardcover 1584654732.

Reviewed by Suzanne Levine, National Center on Disability & Journalism

Seldom is a book devoted solely to media and disability issues — and even less common is a book that claims to critically analyze how disability is represented in mainstream media. Charles A. Riley II's book Disability & the Media: Prescriptions for Change was met by this reviewer with excitement and hope. Unfortunately, it did not deliver. It is plagued with inconsistent writing style, inaccuracies, and ironically, frequent use of disability euphemisms, which makes the book a missed opportunity.

Riley writes about the representation of disability in popular TV, film, advertising, and magazines, as well as how disability issues are covered in disability publications. He makes reference to the many pioneers in the disability movement who forged a new path in the effort to make disability more accurately represented across all types of media. He brings attention to some ethical and debated issues from different points of view like physician-assisted suicide and Christopher Reeve's wanting to walk. He also extensively writes about WE Magazine (he was the editor-in-chief), WeMedia (he was co-founder) and the Internet boom in an entire chapter appropriately titled WE: The Short Happy Life of an Independent Magazine. Riley's writing flips between the general analysis and his personal experience in a way that leaves the reader feeling there are two books going on inside the one, and they are not well-integrated. The reader is left with the impression that Riley really wanted to write about his perspective on the downfall of WE. A tell-all book of what happened during this extraordinary time would be interesting and worthy in and of itself. But Riley mixes his tell-all with shallow pseudo-academic references trying to cast a wide net across all media, while name dropping and writing with judgmental — sometimes bitter -- adjectives that detract from a larger thesis of how disability is represented across media, and almost ignoring the "prescriptions for change."

So, for whom is the book is written? Who is the intended audience? Who would benefit from reading this book? Riley states in the preface that "I did not want to steer this study into the swift current of disability discourse as it mainly exists in the academy since I hope to stay close to my subject — the media's depiction of disability — in the hope that many of my readers will be members of the press themselves" (p. xv). With the exception of issues regarding physician-assisted suicide, I cannot imagine members of the press completing the book and gleaning lessons on how to produce accurate representations of disability. The book jumps between a "tell-all" about the dot.com boom/bust and mostly shallow analysis of how disability is reported on, used in advertising, and represented in popular TV/film. There is no content analysis conducted and no quantification. Analysis comes from hand-picked examples. There are very interesting examples of which lessons can be learned, but the book does not offer an academic substance.

The book loses credibility because of the numerous factual errors about people, movements, and resources that are easily checked. A few of the discrepancies found:

-- Cheryl Marie Wade is identified with having multiple sclerosis (page 52) — she has rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. Wade talked of her diagnosis, which is available on the Web at the Online Archive at University of California-Berkeley library (2004).

-- Riley acknowledges that he was not around for "landmark events in disability history as the 'Berkeley quads'" (p. xv). He was referring to Ed Roberts and other UCB students in the 1960s who worked together to improve conditions for people with disabilities on campus. Explaining the history of the independent living movement, disability historian Steve Brown writes about the actual name of these groups of students: "They even gave themselves a name, 'The Rolling Quads.'" (1999).

-- On page 51, there is mention of a "helpful check list from Easter Seals (reproduced in full as Appendix A)." Appendix A states, "These guidelines are used by permission. Copyright © 2002, National Center on Disability & Journalism." As executive director of National Center on Disability & Journalism (NCDJ), I know that Appendix A is not NCDJ's copyrighted material. After contacting Riley about this, his quick email response said "but I was pretty sure that was the credit was right [sic] not only with you but with tari who also signed off on it (as she had written most of it)." Checking with Tari, she did not have any memory of doing so. A handful of staff and volunteers spend much time researching and writing NCDJ's publications, and of course, we want that work acknowledged when it is reprinted. I still do not know what happened with Appendix A — but it is not the work of NCDJ and our copyright should not be there.

Incorrect citations in the Notes section were brought to my attention, too. For example:

-- On page 233, note 1 under Chapter 1, Beth Haller is cited as the author from the "Negative Media Portrayals of the ADA" quote used on page 7-8. She is not.

-- On page 234, note 7, the citation states that Beth Haller and Sue Ralph's "Profitability, Diversity and Disability images in advertising in the United States and Great Britain" was published in Economic and Social Research Council:2001, pp. 6-13. According to Haller, it was published in DSQ in spring 2001, not in the Economic and Social Research Council.

The consequence of these inaccuracies leads this reviewer to wonder what else is wrong and to question if the information can be trusted in areas where the reviewer has little or no knowledge. It is not a book that could be given to students knowing that they would be accurately informed. This truly is a shame, as Riley is comprehensive in accounting for many of the people who were forging new ground in the field of disability and media; it's just some of the facts got jumbled.

Surprisingly, throughout the book, Riley chooses to use disability language as metaphor. For example:

-- Page 2 — "The image makers who present these spectacles should know better, but their industries are so insular (and becoming more so, with corporate consolidation) that they are blind to the compelling reasons for improving the situation and deaf to the faint criticism offered so far, which could have alerted them to the insults and problems they create." (Bold added). In this one sentence Riley has managed to use the words blind and deaf to imply ignorance and indifference.

-- On page 199, he parallels the dot.com era to the stereotypes of "craziness" and mental illness: "...the vast space of our Web 'laboratory,' which had become one of thousands of such asylums across the United States devoted to the crazed scam that, we now realize, vacuumed up billions of dollars from legitimate enterprises. It was insane." (Bold added).

It is baffling that Riley, who poured so much of his intellect, passion, and commitment into a magazine that hired, trained, and paid people with disabilities, and who in his book refers to using accurate language and staying away from using euphemistic disability language, would in this same book choose language that reinforces stereotypes of people with disabilities. He does the opposite of what he preaches. Riley seems to have a love of language and is often playful and deliberate with his word choice, which leads me to think perhaps he has missed the larger issues when focused upon the process of creating.

The valuable Chapter 7 on WE, coupled with the ethical considerations of the separation between advertising and reporting "sides" referenced throughout the book, is of use for media ethics courses. But I wish he had written an entire book about the WE experience and kept the title and expectation to that.

References

Brown, S. (1999). Reading in independent living. Independent Living Research Utilization Web site. http://www.ilru.org/html/publications/readings_in_IL/peer1.html

The Disability Rights Movement and Independent Living Movement Web Site. (2004). Cheryl Marie Wade. Berkeley, CA: University of California at Berkeley Bancroft Library. http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/collection/items/wade.html.

Haller, B. & Ralph, S. (2001, Spring). Profitability, Diversity, and Disability in Advertising in the UK and United States. Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 2. http://www.dsq-sds.org.