‘I want to change minds and destroy stereotypes’: Wheelchair motocross rider portrayals on Instagram

Abstract

This study explores how wheelchair motocross (WCMX) riders represent themselves on the popular social media platform, Instagram. Situating this work in critical disability studies and using the method of interviews and social media post-election with 10 WCMX riders, this study highlights how WCMX riders use self-representations on Instagram to showcase their sporting identities, and at once, frame disability in affirmative ways that challenge ableism. However, findings also illuminate how some WCMX riders felt pressure to present themselves in inspiring manners. These pressures entrenched in the political economies of Instagram, as I argue, may not only affect the mental health and wellbeing of the WCMX riders, but how audiences come to understand disability. These findings highlight the complexities of self-representations on Instagram and draw attention to how social media can be a potential site of social change and a site where certain understandings of disability are (re)produced.