Research on Media Representation

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Hi, I'm a college freshman writing a research paper on the media representation of autism. I was wondering how most autistic individuals regard the representation of autism in the media and how that representation relates to their own lives. I appreciate all responses! Thank you.

I'm sick-and-tired of what seems like 99 percent of it, being about kids----where's the representation, for ADULTS!!

The autistic adult characters are unusually bright, socially awkward, but cute, an updated Rain Man basically. Often Autism or Aspergers is not mentioned as if the words are shameful.

Personality wise the recent movies The Accountant and The Big Short broke the mold, but yet still the characters have a "superpower" of some sort.

Autistic characters rarely have sensory sensitivities or stim. Autism is usually a presented as a social defect only, not the syndrome and pervasive condition it is.


In news articles, many times autistics are not quoted about their own experiences. Our experiences are presented the way non-autistic researchers, psychologists, and parents view us. This is demonstrated in what news articles nearly uniformly call us, some variation of "person with autism". Many (but not all) of us call ourselves "Autistic".

A disturbing very recent trend is when an autistic person is thought to have committed a crime Autism or Aspergers is in the headline, or in the first paragraph the article. The editors would never dare write headlines like "Black Man Wanted For Bank Robbery" or "Person With Gayness Suspected Of Murdering Parents".

Another problem is what is called "inspiration porn". If an autistic person does a routine thing or something that is expected it presented as heroic, it is written that the person overcame or conquered his or her autism to accomplish this. One does not conquer autism, it is a lifelong thing. Autistics like most people have to overcome things to accomplish things. There are things that are part of autism we have to overcome or more accurately mask, but depending on the individual the stereotypes and stigmas we have to overcome are as much if not considerably more to overcome than the autism itself. Sometimes we use our autism to accomplish things.