Lived Experiences of Public Disability Representations: AScoping Review

Research has largely focussed on public perceptions of people with disabilities,
particularly in the media. However, there is a lack of studies exploring how individu
als with disabilities themselves experience public disability representation. This scoping
review examines the lived experiences of individuals with disabilities regarding such repre
sentations. Eligible studies were peer-reviewed, published between January 1948 and July
2024, and presented qualitative findings on experienced public disability representation.
A systematic search was conducted across PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, OVID, EBSCO,
and Webof Science using variations of the terms ’representation’ and ‘disability’, yielding
32 relevant studies. Data were analysed using both deductive and inductive methods.
Deductive thematic analysis aligned the findings with two established media disability
representation typologies: traditional and contemporary. Inductive thematic analysis
identified three key themes—ignorance, incapability, and otherness—that illustrate how
individuals with disabilities experience public representations. Overall, the review found
that despite the absence of comparative studies, individuals with diverse disabilities report
similar, predominantly negative experiences of public disability representation. Future
studies should adopt an intersectional, cross-disability framework to better capture the experiences of people with disabilities, including those with intellectual disabilities.