People's Daily's Reporting On Paralympic Athletes:A Study Of Disability Narratives

The disabled are an important part of human society.How the disabled are treated reflects a country's level of civilization.The Paralympic Games,as the top-level event of the disabled sports,carries the dreams and pursuits of disabled people all over the world.The Paralympic Games also plays an important role in promoting disabled people's participation in sports and integrating into the society.People's understanding of the disabled group mainly depends on the guidance of news media.Through the Paralympics,people will have a chance to pay close attention to Paralympic athletes and appreciate their spirit of surpassing themselves and striving to succeed.The People's Daily,a representative of China's central media,reports the Paralympic athletes,which is an important manifestation of their social responsibility and humanistic care.The study applies the concept of “disability narrative”.Based on the theory of narratology and news narratology,the study uses the method of text analysis to analyze disability narratives that focused on Paralympic athletes reported by People's Daily.The study analyzes the ideological construction,narrative voice,narrative grammar,and narrative discourse from four aspects: whether to speak,who is speaking,what to speak,and how to speak.The aim of the study is to explore the narrative framework and narrative mode of disability narrative in news reports,and to propose a systematic understanding and a realistic reflection on the disability narrative in news reports.The study finds that the disability narrative on the reports of Paralympic athletes in People's Daily mainly revolves around the event that Paralympic athletes participate in the Paralympic Games.The narrative framework of disability narrative on the reports of Paralympic athletes focuses on Paralympic athletes' social appraisal,performance,background story and emotional expression.The disability narrative in the reporting constructs mainstream ideology and delivers mainstream values by constructing the narrative framework of multiple narrative;produces a multi-dimensional narrative voice by using multiple narrators and perspectives;shows accurate and complete narrative grammar through a combination of events and sequences;flexibly applies narrative discourse through selecting narrative time and arranging narrative structures.In reporting of the disabled and the disabled sports in the future,Chinese media should adhere to the concept of “people-oriented”,on the basis of balancing the number of reports,improving the rights of discourse and paying attention to the psychological needs,to apply disability narrative constructively,showing a humanistic China to the world.