Media & Disability

The Consiglio Nazionale sulla Disabilità (CND) is the unitary and independent Italian body representing persons with disabilities and their families in European actions and policies.

Born in 1995, the CND is founder member from 1997, as Italian representative, of European Disability Forum (EDF), European umbrella organisation of 27 National Councils on Disability from European countries and about 80 European associations.

The CND, with 36 organisation members, evaluate the International, European and Italian policies on disability, elaborate proposals and promote actions to all international and European bodies. Promote knowledge and enforcement of international legal and cultural instruments on disability in Italy, engaging the competent institutions and bodies. The CND mission can be summarized by the following statements:

• Recognition, promotion, protection of human rights of people with disability as well as non-discrimination and equal opportunities for people with disability.
• Evaluation of the European and Italian disability policy orientation, with particular attention to the Italian Government position within the European Union and at the international level.
• Definition of the Italian Disability Movement position within the European Union and international fora.
• Participation in EDF-sponsored initiatives and policies.
• Promotion, knowledge dissemination and implementation in Italy of international position papers and regulations on disability.
• Urging relevant institutions and organizations to comply with international and European obligations.
• Coordination of member Associations by dissemination of information, awareness-raising as to the international and European landscape and promotion of initiatives for the implementation of European and international policies and action plans.

The actions of CND respecting the following values:

• Autonomy: involving organisations of persons with disabilities and, where appropriate, their families.
• Participation: supporting and asking the right of persons with disabilities to fully participate in political decisions concerning own life on the base of the principle : nothing about us without us.
• Independency: controlling the independency of our organisation from conflict of interest and different dependencies.
• Visibility: asking that Human Rights of persons with disabilities are visible in all fields of life.
• Inclusion by law: fighting for the right of persons with disabilities to be fully included in society, on the base of Human Right approach.
• Solidarity: working to building a strong and united movement on disability, with a particular attention to persons who live hard and complex dependency needs and multi-discriminations and strong exclusion.
• Partnership: building alliances with all organisations accepting our goals and supporting Human Rights of persons with disabilities. Networking to share ideas and experiences with our partners and all having competences and experiences useful for full inclusion of persons with disabilities.

At a national level the stronger collaborations established in the field of mainstream media by the member organisations are with Rai, the italian public service broadcasting.

RAI broadcasts three terrestrial channels, three radio channels, satellite television channels, and it’s also involved in cinema, fiction and multimedia productions, with a comprehensible influence in the diffusion of cultural models in the italian society.

In order to improve the audience´s attention on social issues Rai established a Social Action Department, responsible for company communication and social programming, with a view to defining the communication guidelines and the reference principles for the presentation of social problems by the Rai, within the service contract between the Rai and the Communications Ministry.

A Permanent Commission for Discussion on social programming has been set up to examine the social programming of this public services company, and monitor access transmissions, in light of the principles and instructions in the Services Contract. The Permanent Commission is made up of 24 members, 12 representing both parties, nominated by the Ministry and 12 representatives from the Rai. One of the 12 members nominated by the Ministry is the president of FISH (Italian Federation for overcoming a handicap).

Moreover representative of CND disability NGO’s participate in the realization of an “Ethical-linguistic code and typology of the broadcasting offer standards, laws, and self-regulation codes”, working tools for operators in broadcasting communication promoted by the Social Action Department.

In the field of specialized media many of the member organisations publish own newspaper and on line resources on disability issues, and they are - at a local and national level - involved in project (film festival, journalistic award etc.) related to disability and media.

The Empowernet Agency, related to Fish and recently established, is trying to become a national point of reference for specialized media and mainstream media on the issues and thematics of disability. The main activities comprise the website Superando.it, and two of the more read national disability bimonthly, “Mobilità” and “DM”.