Portrayals of autism in the British press: A corpus-based study.

Researchers looked at how British newspapers wrote about autism from 2011-2020. They found that newspapers mostly focused on negative aspects of autism and mainly wrote about autistic boys and children. Coverage increased slightly over time, especially in quality newspapers and left-leaning papers. Some newspapers started showing autism more positively in recent years, but this was mainly in broadsheet papers.

The negative coverage may make it harder for society to accept and include autistic people.

This corpus-based study analyzed autism coverage in 10 British national newspapers from 2011-2020 to examine societal attitudes toward autism. Researchers found that autism coverage increased slightly over the decade, with greater increases in broadsheet and left-leaning newspapers compared to tabloids and right-leaning publications. The analysis revealed predominantly negative portrayals emphasizing adversities associated with autism, with coverage focusing disproportionately on autistic children, particularly boys. Some positive changes emerged in recent years, with certain newspapers beginning to represent autism as a difference and including more diverse autistic populations, though these improvements were primarily limited to broadsheets and left-leaning outlets.

The findings suggest media representations remain skewed toward negative stereotypes, potentially hindering autism acceptance and social inclusion.

Negative media representations may perpetuate stigma and hinder autism acceptance. Clinicians should be aware of how media portrayals might influence family attitudes and expectations. The focus on children and males in media coverage may contribute to delayed or missed diagnoses in adults and females. Advocacy for balanced, strengths-based autism representation in media may support broader social inclusion efforts.

The study examined only British newspapers and may not reflect broader media or international contexts. The corpus-based methodology's specific analytical approach is not detailed in the abstract. No information provided about inter-rater reliability or validation of coding frameworks used to assess positive versus negative portrayals.

Any thriving society must recognise, accept and celebrate all of its diverse talent. But how accepting is British society towards autism and autistic people? This research addressed this question through the lens of the press since the press both reflects and helps shape public attitudes towards various social categories. We used specialised 'corpus-based' methods to carry out a large-scale study, which examined all articles referring to autism or autistic people in 10 national British newspapers in the period 2011-2020.

We first investigated how often newspapers referred to autism. We found that the coverage of autism increased slightly over the years, suggesting that autism was becoming an increasingly newsworthy topic. Furthermore, the rise in autism coverage differed considerably between individual newspapers: it was more pronounced in the broadsheets than tabloids, and in left-leaning than right-leaning newspapers. But what was the focus of these articles?

We found that newspapers emphasised the adversities associated with autism and portrayed autism with a lot of negative language. Newspapers also tended to focus on autistic children, and particularly on boys. There were some signs of change in more recent years, with some newspapers now representing autism as a difference and, in addition, referring to more diverse groups of autistic people. However, these changes tended to be confined to broadsheets and left-leaning newspapers.

Our findings suggest that representations of autism in the contemporary British press are skewed towards stereotypically negative views, which may well hinder the acceptance of autism and the fostering of a more inclusive society.