Deitz, CharlieJohnston, Alyson2024-08-302024-08-302024https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29948Helen Keller was born an able-bodied girl in 1880. At 19 months old, she lost her ability to see and hear. After her teacher, Anne Sullivan, taught her tactile sign language and Braille, she went on to graduate college with honors, write 14 books, and become a worldwide inspiration. This project analyzes the media coverage of Keller from 1888 to the present day and combines the fields of journalism and disability studies to investigate the representation of Keller’s life in media. While the literature review discusses invisible disability, fake news, conspiracy theories, ableism and inspiration porn, the project itself utilizes a qualitative inductive media content analysis, where the author built a book of codes, or themes, to analyze common patterns across all 71 pieces of media. Across 11 newspaper sources, 10 television sources, 25 TikTok sources and 25 X sources, coverage of Keller had more negative tones in new media that mentioned her, specifically TikToks and X posts. Additionally, this study notes the more recent trend of conspiracy theories online surrounding Keller’s “legitimacy” and even existence in society.en-USCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Helen KellerMedia StudiesDisabilityConspiracy TheoriesAbleismThesis/Dissertation0009-0003-8460-429X