Disability in media. The case of Spain.

    Just because of that I am reading my presentation. During the next few minutes, I am going to present the model of relationship between media and the movement of people with disabilities in Spain. Fifteen years ago there was no relationship at all. People with disabilities didn’t have any social presence in public opinion. Other than a few advertising campaigns run by Inserso (National Institute for Social Services), ONCE (Spanish National Organisation of the Blind) or its foundation specifically relating to social inclusion through employment there was no presence of disability in media. They had no voice and were somehow irrelevant in social and political debates. We can say that disabled people were object of advertising but they didn’t have a relevant voice in the media as actors trying to form a more inclusive world.
    
    In this environment Fundación ONCE founded Servimedia as sole shareholder. It was created as a news agency with the mission of creating and disseminating political and social information. In fact Servimedia has become the major specialist in social policy information in Spanish Media providing a service with high quality and professional standards. Information about the movement of people with disabilities, their needs, problems and achievements, information about the organisations of people with disabilities, about the plans and programmes of Public Administrations and other actors intervening in this area of social policy have become a major part of the information provided by Servimedia. Currently Servimedia is distributing 150 news items per day, 60 of which are related to social policy and 30 to the movement of people with disabilities.
    
    Since the outset Servimedia has demonstrated the capacity of disabled people in solving their problems and achieving social integration not only by spreading information about their achievements but also by integrating disabled journalists as workers.  At this time Servimedia employs 86 workers, 40% of whom have some kind of disability. And these disabled journalists are present in many crucial places, such as the Spanish Parliament and Senate giving high quality service and a living example of the capacity of disabled people. To find these disabled workers Servimedia has signed agreements with many universities so that the agency provides training and professional opportunities to disabled students of Journalism and Information Science.
    
    Soon we realised that the news agency service was important for the movement of disabled people, but it was not enough. Many organisations needed to contact their associates directly and needed also to convey their messages to public opinion and policy makers. In order to meet these needs Servimedia set up a publications department and since then it has been helping these organisations to release their magazines and bulletins. It is presently editing and releasing 30 magazines about social policy, many of them published by the most important organisations of disabled people. We publish the magazine “Perfiles” a general magazine on social policy sponsored by ONCE. We also publish the monthly newspaper CEMI.ES, the only newspaper addressing disability issues. This paper, edited by CERMI (Spanish Committee of Disabled People Representatives), releases 50,000 copies monthly and is distributed to all people concerned with disabilities: at all levels of government (national, regional and local) and all disability movement leaders. We are delivering copies of this two magazines at the end of the Plenary Sesion.
    
    But the dissemination of disability-related messages through the news agency or through the press published by CERMI organisations does not suffice to reach the general public. Other media also need to reflect what disabled people want to say to society. In view of this, Servimedia has also established a Communications Department. Its function is to help the organisations of people with disabilities to contact other media and try to insert messages from these organisations in those media. Moreover this is the most cost-efficient means of reaching the public at large and the leaders who influence public opinion. An example will illustrate this assertion. Last February the First European Congress on Disability was held in Madrid, with Servimedia providing the Communications services. Coverage during the Congress included 29 references in radio, fifteen in TV, 71 in newspapers and 50 in electronic media with a value in media of 1,009,700 Euros for a cost of 20,300 Euros. But the information provided by media as result of Communication Departments intervention is not only cost efficient but also much more credible. As social – psicologists and experts in communication know, it is always more credible the information about a particular issue given by one with no direct interest on it, than the one given by promoters of the idea or value.
    
    The Communications Department also supports the organisations of disabled people and CERMI in the area of Institutional Relations, by arranging for contacts between their leaders and prominent political, economic and social service leaders.
    
    Finally, the advent of new information technologies entails a revolution in the area of social policy as well. It involves new opportunities for internal communication among people forming part of organisations of people with disabilities. It also affords new potential to structure the movement of people with disabilities. In order to help the world of disability to benefit from these opportunities Servimedia also provides services in this area.  For instance Servimedia provides informative bulletins to update these organisations’ websites as a tool for internal communication. Moreover, Servimedia is employing financial support from the European Social Fund to publish a daily electronic newspaper called “Solidaridaddigital.com”. It is a true newspaper with sections covering national and international issues, associations, interviews, sports and cultural events. This daily newspaper provides some 30 or 40 news items about the present status of the disability movement. We regard this newspaper to be a complete success. Comparing two months - May 2002 and May 2003 - the number of pages visited was 41,256 in 2002 and 63,098 in 2003, for a 53% rise. The number of users increased from 18,161 to 22,855 in the same period (26%).
    
    But Servimedia’s is not the only experience that can be mentioned in the Spanish case. In response to the efforts of Servimedia and Fundación ONCE to give social relevance to important topics related to the disability movement, other media have started to include the voice of disabled people among their contents. For instance, the three major private radio networks in Spain have programmes devoted to needs, problems and achievements in the process of social integration of people with disabilities. Also the national public radio broadcasts a five-minute CERMI programme weekly. And the leading digital newspaper elmundo.es is devoting special attention to the European Year of People with Disabilities. Finally, public and private television channels are also including this kind of information in their newscasts. Special mention should be made of the Telecinco project called “Twelve Months, twelve causes” in which problems affecting disabled people have been thoroughly dealt with.
    
    But a question must still be posed: what effects have this communications effort had? We can’t give a quantitative answer. There are no comparable data about the image of disabled people over the years in question. But qualitative impressions show that the improvement in this image has been very important. At present the movement of disabled people (a movement that mobilises 3.5 million people in Spain) is socially and politically relevant, and it was not so a decade ago. There is a fact of particular importance that confirms this impression: whenever there are elections in Spain political leaders from the major parties seek encounters with disabled movement leaders to explain their programs and proposals.
    
    Other data provide a sort of confirmation of the positive effect of the communications effort. For instance, according to Euro-barometer 54-2 on “The Europeans and disability” dated May 2001, Spain is one of the countries where people claim to feel more comfortable in presence of a disabled person and where they think that others also feel comfortable, not projecting negative feeling against disability on others, or expressing attitudes which would indicate general social disapproval. These data are in general confirmed by a similar survey conducted by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research (CIS)

    The will of companies to employ disabled people is another good indicator of the effect of communication in a context where many efforts have been made to erase certain prejudices in this area. We can say that de cooperation with many companies has allowed to ONCE to create 20.000 new jobs in the last four years.
      
    Nonetheless, in the future we should intensify the information provided to the public. As pointed out by Euro-barometer 54-2, and despite the communications efforts made, the Spanish population considers that they have little information about disability. 

    To conclude we would like to point out that much remains to be done, although we have progressed quite far on the way to social integration of disabled people. And all we know is that if communication has been instrumental in this first part of the journey, it will be indispensable in reaching our destination, because we need the media to reach public opinion.