The Self-Representation of "Being Disabled": Media Images as the Most Pervasive (Re)Producer of the Values of Society's Culture.

We examine the role of media and new technologies in the representation and experience of disability. The text argues that media influence our cultural assumptions about disability while at the same time reflecting and shaping reality. The text analyses the opportunities and challenges that new technologies offer to people with disabilities, such as empowerment, self-expression, and social connection, but also exclusion, confrontation, shame, and falsification of identity. The text also shows that the meaning of disability is not unambiguous, but multiple and overlapping understandings coexist.