Research reveals public hostility caused by the media
Research reveals public hostility caused by the media
New research by SCOPE reveals public hostility has been caused by the media’s portrayal of disabled people as benefit scroungers.
07/08/2012
Research published by SCOPE reveals that of the disabled people surveyed, 83% said media coverage about benefits scroungers is fuelling public hostility, almost half (46%) said people’s attitudes towards them have got worse over the past year. 87% said that people claiming disability benefits when they’re not disabled also contribute to the hostility and 73% disabled people experienced the assumption that they don’t work.
The research, carried out by ComRes, surveyed online 393 disabled people, 56 parents of disabled people, and 53 carers between 17 November 2011 and 6 January 2012.
As London is about to host the Paralympics SCOPE calls for the government to promote more positive images of disabled people and urges the Government to tell the ‘whole story when it comes to welfare reform’ because benefit fraud is rare and ‘more money goes unclaimed than is defrauded’.
Full data tables can be found at www.comres.co.uk
Sources for this article included: http://www.scope.org.uk/news/discrimination
