Title: Do Online Constructions of Disability Affect Attitudes Toward Persons on Wheelchair? Results from an Online Experiment
Stream: Social Media and Communication Technology
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Rafael Sofokleous, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Stelios Stylianou, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Abstract:
Building on theoretical foundations from social psychology, social constructionism and disability studies, we applied an online experimental design to investigate whether exposure to online content (news items and social media posts) affects attitudes toward persons on wheelchair. We recruited 116 students from a public university in the Mediterranean region and, after administering a printed pretest on their attitudes toward persons on wheelchair, we assigned them into three groups: one that read online texts corresponding to the Medical and Charity models of disability (first experimental group), one that read online texts corresponding to the Social and Human Rights models of disability (second experimental group) and one that read online texts with content that was irrelevant to any of the models (control group). The experimental stimuli were communicated to the participants via email during a five-day period after the pretest. Each group received three email messages with a total of nine stimuli. After the implementation of the stimuli, we administered a modified print version of the pretest as a posttest. We found that exposure to stimuli corresponding to the Social and Human Rights models of disability had a significant mild effect on attitudes toward persons on wheelchair in the expected direction (i.e., increased pro-social/human rights attitudes). We also found that exposure to stimuli corresponding to the Medical and Charity models of disability did not affect attitudes toward persons on wheelchair. A repeat posttest, administered one week after the posttest, showed stability of the observed effects.
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