Please find on this page the main results and publications from our research project.
This study explores how Italian Paralympic athletes perceive their representation in the media, shifting the focus from media texts to the athletes’ lived experiences across their sporting careers. Using semi-structured interviews and a hybrid inductive–deductive thematic analysis, it identifies key themes in how athletes evaluate current coverage: while visibility has increased, narratives remain dominated by stereotypes such as “supercrip” and pity frames, which marginalize sporting performance. The athletes call for more sport-centred coverage and highlight self-representation through social media as a crucial tool for promoting more inclusive and accurate narratives of disability in sport.