Development of the People or Props Tool: Integrating Prejudice Reduction Psychology Insights to Improve Representations of Disability on Screen

Representations of disability in media often perpetuate stereotypes that reinforce prejudice and lead to the marginalisation and oppression of disabled people. Many conventions for representing disabled people in film have not changed since the dawn of cinema, which was also a time of mainstream popularisation of the eugenics movement. Several approaches are necessary to dismantle and replace these problematic conventions, and this paper develops a research-based tool to help achieve that goal. A disabled psychologist utilised the Delphi method and incorporated feedback from 30 disability and media experts as well as insights from prejudice reduction psychological research to develop a new media analysis tool. The proposed People or Props Tool contains two parts: the People or Props Quickscore, which allows for quick assessment of the quality of representation and generates a score, and the People or Props Recommendations, which offer detailed advice for improved representation. This tool could be especially useful for sensitivity readers, writers, and funding decision makers within the media industry, encouraging feedback and revisions during the development process rather than serving as a rigid, prescriptive list. This approach allows for flexibility in storytelling while providing guidelines for improved representation. The tool can also be easily adapted to improve representations of other minority groups.