Gender issues in newspaper coverage of people with disabilities: A Canada-Israel comparison

This research compared how over a three-month period Canadian and Israeli n ewspapers wrote about females and males with disabitities. The results show ed that in both countries there was significantly greater coverage of males than females. In addition, different (and stereotypical) types of details were used to describe the two groups, and females were associated with diff erent kinds of problems than males, including a higher incidence of violenc e and victimization. There were also some significant differences between t he male and female journalists in this study, and evidence of sexism within the newspaper industry. This paper concludes with some ideas for altering the images of disabled women in the media.