St Mary’s Academic Wins Outstanding Academic Title Award

Dr Jacob Johanssen, Course Lead for BA Communications and Marketing at St Mary’s University, Twickenham has co-edited a book with Dr Diana Garrisi (Assistant Professor, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China) called Disability, Media, and Representations: Other Bodies that has won the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title.

Choice is a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. The Outstanding Academic Title Award recognises the highest quality books of the academic community.

The book, published by Routledge, aims to explore and critique representations of physical and mental impairments in print, broadcast and online media. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from around the world addressing how people can be ‘othered’ in contemporary media, the chapters focus on analyses of hateful discourses about disability on Reddit, news coverage of disability and education, media access of individuals with disabilities, the logic of memes and brain tumour on Twitter, celebrity and Down Syndrome on Instagram, disability in TV drama, the metaphor of disability for the nation; as well as an autoethnography of treatment of breast cancer.

Speaking of the award, co-editor and Senior Lecturer in Communications at St Mary’s, Jacob Johanssen said, “I am delighted that the book and the contributors’ excellent chapters have been recognised by the Choice award. I hope that the edited volume will contribute to the internationalisation of disability studies.”

Diana Garrisi added, “As the news reached us shortly after the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which is celebrated every year on the 3rd of December, we hope this award will contribute to fostering critical discussions about media and diversity in the post-Covid-19 world”