About the Study

The study explores how deaf identities and sign languages have been represented in Singaporean media from 1945 to 2025. Drawing on newspaper archives from NewspaperSG, LexisNexis, Factiva and articles on newspaper websites, Phoebe Tay examines the narratives and ideologies that have shaped public perceptions of deafness, disability, and sign language over the past eight decades. As a deaf researcher, she brings both scholarly and lived perspectives to this analysis.

The study shows how media portrayals have framed deaf people and sign languages, highlighting recurring themes such as disability stereotypes, inspiration porn, benevolence narratives, and diversity tokenism. The study explore how these representations influence societal attitudes towards deaf people, sign languages, and disability.

Phoebe also provides insights into her research methods, including quantitative and qualitative content analysis and archival research, and highlights how she used resources from the National Library Board and National Archives of Singapore to trace changing public media discourses surrounding deaf people and sign languages.

 

This project complements her doctoral research on the language teacher identities of deaf sign language instructors by providing a broader historical and societal context for understanding deaf experiences in Singapore.