Representation of people with disabilities in advertisements in Costa Rica: Review from multimodal analysis

Abstract

The aim of this article is to determine the representation of persons with disabilities (PCD) in the print media advertisements of Costa Rica during the period 2014-2016. In the first place, we analyze the advertisements on disability that have appeared in the three most widely circulated newspapers in Costa Rica, following the Fairclough’s (2003) budgets about the representation of social actors, inclusion and exclusion strategies, legitimization and explanation that are made of the PCD in the ads. We determine the actions performed by the PDC in the analyzed texts, the relationships with other people that appear in the announcements. Finally, from a multimodal perspective of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), through the visual analysis and its relation with the linguistic one, we analyzed the congruent or incongruent images that are promoted in the advertising discourse. It is concluded that there is an invisibility of this population; since the number of ads on disability is less than 0.0015% and that the speech reproduces stigmas and stereotypes from a social- assistance perspective of the PCD, even though it is the State the main advertiser of the ads.