Who you show in your content sends a message about who you are, who you serve, and whose stories matter.

The representation audit

Look at your last 20 pieces of visual content. Ask:

  • Are disabled people visible? Or is disability implied but invisible?
  • When disabled people appear, how are they depicted?
  • Are they in active, positive, agentic roles, or passive, dependent ones?
  • Do they represent the diversity of disability (physical, sensory, cognitive, psychosocial)?
  • Are the disabled people in your content the subjects of the story – or props in someone else’s?

What to avoid

Inspiration porn: Content that positions disabled people as inspirational objects for non-disabled audiences.

The grateful recipient: Content that positions disabled people as passive recipients of care rather than people with full lives and agency.

Tokenism: Including one disabled person in a stock photo and calling it inclusive representation.

Stock photos: Generic disability stock photography is often terrible. Real photos of real people you actually work with (with consent) are always more powerful.

What to aim for

  • Disabled people shown as whole people with full lives
  • Authentic representation of your actual participants and community
  • Diversity within disability representation
  • Stories that centre the disabled person’s perspective
  • Consent processes that are genuine, not performative

Exercise

Conduct the representation audit on your last 20 pieces of visual content. What patterns do you notice? What would you change?

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