AN ANALYSIS OF DISABILITY REPRESENTATION IN SERBIAN AND US PRESS THROUGH THE USE OF PEOPLE-FIRST LANGUAGE
AN ANALYSIS OF DISABILITY REPRESENTATION IN SERBIAN AND US PRESS THROUGH THE USE OF PEOPLE-FIRST LANGUAGE

Summary/Abstract: Widespread discriminatory attitudes and low levels of public knowledge greatly impact people with disabilities. Through its portrayal of disability, the media, a major force in forming public opinion, either reinforces or challenges these perceptions. Using people-first language strengthens the fact that people with disabilities are primarily persons and has the potential to change the attitude of the public toward this marginalized social group. This paper aims to do a contrastive, quantitative research on the use of people-first language in select Serbian and US online media portals over the period of the past decade and a half to determine the degree of adoption of these politically correct expressions and its development through time. This will be coupled with a look into how these expressions change the article's sentiment towards people with disabilities. The research pilots the introduction of web-scraping tools for data collection, AI-trained models for data analysis, and Natural Language APIs for sentiment analysis.

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