STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS INSPIRATION PORN

Abstract

So-called inspiration porn is a popular social media trend. The term was introduced in 2012 by a disability rights activist Stella Young to describe the objectivization of people with disabilities engaging in everyday activities for the purpose of inspiring people without disabilities, which leads to reduced opportunities and slower progress towards an inclusive society. Considering the fact that this sort of depiction of people with disabilities is very common and easily available on social media, especially to university students, this paper will showcase the comparison between the attitudes of 3rd year undergraduate students of Rehabilitation/Educational Rehabilitation at the University of Zagreb’s Faculty Education and Rehabilitation Sciences (N=51) and the University of Mostar’s Faculty of Science and Education (N=24) towards inspiration porn. The aim is to understand the trend’s reach and its influences on students’ attitudes towards people with disabilities as their future clients by examining all three attitude components (emotional, cognitive, and behavioural) using a 9-item questionnaire. The participants marked the level of their agreement with the items on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Results indicate that students from the University of Mostar are more influenced by inspiration porn messaging in relation to all three attitude components than their peers from the University of Zagreb, i.e. such messaging is more likely to cause them to feel better about their own abilities (emotional component), they are more likely to share such content on their social media (behavioural component) and to consider inspiration porn an appropriate depiction of people with disabilities (cognitive component).