Paralympics pt 7

The reason I share these stories is because people don’t understand the disabled community. Some able-bodied people, not all, think that if they have something wrong with their physique then they probably have something wrong with their intellect. The way we disabled athletes show that not all disabled people are that way is through the Paralympics and it’s events. I love the way the United Kingdom did this during the 2012 Paralympics in London. According to From Awww To Awe Factor: UK Audience Meaning-Making Of The 2012 Paralympics As Mediated Spectacle by Caroline E. M. Hodges, Richard Scullion, and Daniel Jackson: “In the region of 2.75 million tickets were sold, making the London Games virtually a sell-out. In addition to those spectators who experienced events live, an audience of nearly 40 million people (70 per cent of the UK population) watched some of the Paralympics on television (Hodges et al. 2014). The competition was broadcast in the United Kingdom by Channel 4, a publicly owned, commercially funded public service broadcaster, and it was the first time this station had covered the event.” That’s what I want: “a publicly owned, commercially funded public service broadcaster” (Hodges) or what we usually associate with this: free local digital channels. I don’t know about you but that’s almost all I watch unless I go to my grandma’s house where she has cable and every channel you could imagine.