Review of Ella Houston's Advertising Disability (2024)

Authors

  • Edward Timke Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising + PR, Michigan State University

Abstract

As someone who has lived with a hearing disability all my life, I research and regularly reflect on how advertising portrays disabilities. Over the years, I vividly recall ads that promised to “fix” hearing loss with technology, often featuring non-disabled actors who exaggerated their impairment, only to be “cured” by the product. Such portrayals left me feeling angry, misunderstood, and misrepresented. Ella Houston’s Advertising Disability addresses this very issue: how disability is commodified, simplified, or poorly represented in advertising—even when the goal is to support people with disabilities.

Author Biography

Edward Timke, Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising + PR, Michigan State University

Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising + PR, Michigan State University

Published

2025-09-16

How to Cite

Timke, E. (2025). Review of Ella Houston’s Advertising Disability (2024). Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 14(2), 325=330. Retrieved from https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/1256

Issue

Section

Reviews