Whose Voice Counts As Standard? Toward An Inclusive Pedagogy For Non-Standard Accented And Disabled Speakers In Broadcasting Education

Abstract

Broadcasting and hosting programs train students toward a single, narrow vocal ideal: fluent, regionally unmarked, and rhythmically uninterrupted. This paper argues that the pedagogical machinery producing that ideal — diction drills, fluency benchmarks, and "non-regional diction" targets — does more than teach a skill. It enforces a hierarchy in which regional accent, second-language phonology, and disability-linked speech difference are treated as errors to be corrected rather than variations to be accommodated. Drawing together standard language ideology, raciolinguistics, and disability studies — literatures that have developed largely in parallel — the paper proposes that broadcasting pedagogy be reconceived through the lens of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), shifting the object of instruction from accent elimination to communicative effectiveness. Four conceptual models are developed to illustrate the argument: a gatekeeping model of current practice, a three-axis map of vocal marginalization, a comparative curriculum design, and a proposed model of inclusive broadcasting pedagogy. The paper closes by considering what this reframing would concretely require of curriculum designers, assessment rubrics, and the broadcasting industry itself.