Neurodiversity and Neurodivergence in Mass Communication
Evan Kirksey, Joel Lansing Reed, Scott E. Branton · 2025
In this chapter, the authors conceptualize neurodiversity&s;s place within mass communication research. The authors argue that communication and media studies scholarship on autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other neurodivergences historically was entangled in the medical model of disability and systemic ableism. However, the authors identify some of the ways that more recent scholarship has begun to challenge media depictions of neurodiversity and move toward a neurodiversity perspective. They first detail persistent and emerging models for understanding neurodivergence before demonstrating how these models inform media scholarship on neurodiversity. Finally, they identify major areas of consideration emerging from the extant literature in the areas of advocacy, branding, and representation and conclude with a call for greater attention to neurodivergence as an intersectional and value-neutral aspect of human identity within media and communication scholarship.