Abstract
Social media applications like TikTok provide important opportunities for visibility and representation among marginalized people. This chapter examines TikTok’s viral videos on disability and their implications for members of the disability community. Specifically, it analyzes 100 of TikTok’s most widely viewed videos on disability. The analysis focuses on issues of intersectionality and how the videos rhetorically challenge or reinforce disability stereotypes and tropes. Findings show that many of the videos challenge narrow media tropes and ableist stereotypes. Platform-based norms, however, appear to privilege only a select few creators and creators with disabilities are seldom among them.
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Foster, J., Pettinicchio, D. (2023). #DisabilityTikTok. In: Jeffress, M.S., Cypher, J.M., Ferris, J., Scott-Pollock, JA. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Disability and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14447-9_17
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