A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Ali, Ash, Sarah, Surinder: Watching Telly
Carol Thomas has observed that the agents or „carriers‟ of disablism include not only those
close to us or others we come into contact with, but also „unknown individuals and
disembodied others in the media and wider culture‟ (Thomas, 1999:48). With this in mind, I
watched an episode of the popular Channel 4 game show Deal Or No Deal with four
participants, Ali, Ash, Sarah and Surinder. I watched the same episode with each of them
separately and in their own homes in order to recreate approximately the context in which
each normally watches television – at home, alone. I had ascertained with each prior to our
viewing that each watches Deal Or No Deal anyway: this was not a novel experience.
Deal Or No Deal is presented by „TV personality‟ Noel Edmonds. Each afternoon one player
from among 22 is selected to play the game. The others watch and cheer and remain in
position with their boxes, offering encouragement to the selected player and hoping that their
turn will come soon. Each player has a red box containing an unknown cash prize ranging in
value from 1p. to £250,000. The selected player must choose boxes randomly with the hope
of maximising the sum of prize money she will be offered. The tension of the game is built
around the player having periodically to consider prize offers and to judge whether to „Deal‟
for the amount currently on offer or to „No Deal‟, gambling and taking the chance of a lower
or higher offer after playing the next round. The cash offers are made by a mystery figure on
the unseen end of a telephone line known as the Banker. Edmonds chats on the telephone
with the Banker before presenting the cash prize offers to the player. He also encourages
emotional audience participation throughout the game.
The contestant playing to see if he could win „life-changing money‟ on the show I watched
with Ali, Ash, Sarah and Surinder was Rhys, a young man from Wales, who is a wheelchair
user. We watched the episode on a dvd sent by Channel 4 for my use in this research. I asked
each participant to pause the transmission whenever he or she wanted to talk about their
thoughts on what was unfolding within the programme.
Straight In
Noel: Welcome... Rhys Devereaux... from Llanelli... Mum‟s here... hello, Betty... tell me
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about Friedrich‟s ataxia...
Rhys: Well, I suffer from Friedrich‟s ataxia which is a genetic condition...