[Air-L] FW: Internet access and accessibility for people with disabilities

[Peter Timusk]

Some thoughts from me a disabled person.

From: ptimusk at sympatico.ca
To: philippa.smith at aut.ac.nz
Subject: RE: [Air-L] Internet access and accessibility for people with disabilities
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2013 22:18:01 -0400




I would say for mental health issues you might look at poverty as a factor. Also hundreds of thousands of persons with disabilities in Ontario my home province in Canada and I know many, many more in the USA live with government income support. Which means not enough money to live on properly. You can't look at disability in the west without looking at poverty.

What really is accessibility on the web given this massive poverty factor.

Also I remember a homeless person telling me at a protest that homeless people have e-mail address when discussing how to campaign.


> From: philippa.smith at aut.ac.nz
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 02:09:52 +0000
> Subject: [Air-L] Internet access and accessibility for people with	disabilities
> 
> Dear AOIR members,
> 
> I am currently searching the academic literature to  help me in my preparation of a research proposal about internet access and accessibility for people with disabilities here in New Zealand. This will consider not only difficulties in being 'connected' but also what the needs are of people in using computers/the Internet whether they have impairments relating to vision or hearing, or who suffer from physical conditions as a result of diseases such as Parkinson's Disease or arthritis. Really anything in the health area that is relevant to this topic and it should extend to include anything about the benefits of the Internet for people with disabilities such as empowerment.
> 
> I am aware that the Pew Report does cover this to some extent, and have also found Dobransky and Harigattai's 2006 paper titled 'The disability divide in Internet access and use' in Information Communication and Society to be useful. But if anyone can offer or direct me to further material I would be very grateful.
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Philippa
> 
> Philippa K Smith, PhD
> Research Manager
> Institute of Culture, Discourse & Communication
> AUT University
> Auckland
> NEW ZEALAND
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