Media Trust’s Reframing Disability Summit: Key Insights and Takeaways

Media Trust’s Reframing Disability summit, sponsored by Channel 4, and in partnership with Disability Rights UK and Scope brought together representatives from the media and creative industry with leading disability charities to discuss the representation of disabled people in the media and how this can be improved.

Media Trust brought together 18 disability charities and 60 media and creative industry attendees on the 28 October in order to facilitate discussions on a range of issues from improving the representation of disabled people on and off screen in film, television programming and broadcast news, to recruitment, to the role advertising and brands can play in positively influencing societal attitudes and behaviours and de-stigmatising disability.

The BBC, Buzzfeed and CNN were among the news organisations who attended the event, alongside tech giants Facebook and Google and creative and media agencies including ELVIS, MediaCom, Omnicom group, Weber Shandwick, BBH and Wavemaker. The charities and disability organisations taking part included Scope, Disability Rights UK, National Autistic Society, Access Sport and Inclusion London.

There were also presentations from media and disability experts including Sue Bott – Deputy Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK, James Taylor – Head of Policy, Public Affairs and Campaigns at Scope and Emma Gardner – Managing Partner at ELVIS.

 

Download key insights from the Reframing Disability Summit

 

Reframing Disability Report Image of front page

Check out some of the summit highlights and hear from attendees in the video below.

Summit highlights film created by BBH

A version of the film with audio description can be found here.

Su-Mei Thompson, Media Trust CEO:

“’Reframing Disability’ is all about starting a real and honest conversation between organisations representing disabled people and the media and creative industry. We want to bring these two groups together with the aim of creating better representation and increased access for disabled people. We’re also hoping that this event will be the start of greater understanding, connectivity and collaboration between the two sectors. This is important for so many reasons but maybe most of all because we know people are changed by what they see and also when they are seen. We hope that through this initiative we can play a part in destigmatising disability in society today and ensure disabled people don’t feel constrained in their ambitions.”

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