What is “inspiration porn” on social media and how does it effect [sic] deaf people and communities?

Abstract

As a deaf person situated firmly in hearing culture, I face ableism and audism on a regular basis. I wanted to explore the ableist dynamics and desire to represent deafness and hearing devices in an audio centric way, and how this ultimately impacts all of society not just those who are deaf. This led to the topic of Inspiration Porn, which is the objectification of disabled people portrayed as ‘overcoming’ their disability and I wanted to look at this concept in the context of deaf Inspiration Porn on social media. The case study clips selected for textual analyses were both posted on Facebook and I use them as discussion points within the questionnaires and interviews. I used Grounded Theory to analyse the qualitative data collected on the lived experiences of Deaf, deaf and hearing participants. By combining all these data sets with a review of key historical events and contemporary views of deafness in the digital era, I was able to find the roots of many issues and why they have persisted. The result of this study was that the overall impact on society was profoundly negative and social media in this context does not improve how deafness is viewed. Recommended areas for further research are included to build upon this study with a view to include a wider diversity of deaf people or specific communities and how they interact with Inspiration Porn content.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English