SPORTS IDENTITY OF THE ATHLETES WITH DISABILITY: A STUDY OF PHOTO COVERAGE ON INSTAGRAM OF THE BRAZILIAN PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE

Abstract

The media-sport speech can play a key role in the stigmatization or not stigmatization process of people with disability in society. In this sense, the main question of this study was: how photographic frames of CPB posts on instagram who depicted the disabled athletes during the 2015 Parapan-american Games did contribut to sports representation of the same? For this research, we collected all the posts made on instagram CPB of July 31 to August 15, 2015, period included the realization of the Parapanamerican Games to Toronto. For the analysis of corpus we selected 93 images that depicedt athletes with disabilities. The images were organized and analyzed from four predefined categories: 1) the visibility of disability; 2) the space occupied by athletes; 3) the position of the athletes; and 4) the clothing of athletes. We noted, at the end of this study, that the photographic coverage of the CPB in its instagram profile contributes partially for a sports view of disabled athletes, showing a tendency to emphasize them hiding their weaknesses, showing them in passive positions and without their competition uniforms. We noted, therefore, that sports and media institutions show athletes with disabilities without hiding or mystify their bodily identities without creating a virtual identity or a second reality about them.