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

[Meryl Alper]

Hi Phillippa (and all who have responded thus far),

Some more references to add here:

1. Bakardjieva, M., & Smith, R. (2001). The Internet in everyday life. New
Media & Society, 3, 67-83. [Discusses disability in the context of the
social shaping of the internet]

2. Kirkpatrick, B. (2012). ‘A blessed boon’: Radio, disability,
governmentality, and the discourse of the ‘shut-in,’ 1920-1930. Critical
Studies in Media Communication, 29(3), 165-184. [Provides a pre-internet
perspective on connectivity and accessibility]

3. Mankoff, J., Hayes, G. R., & Kasnitz, D. (2010). Disability studies as a
source of critical inquiry for the field of assistive technology. In
Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers
and Accessibility, October 25-27, 2010, Orlando, FL. [Good overview on the
complexity of "assistive technology" in relation to disability]

I'd also encourage you to focus on particular populations with
disabilities.  For example, people who are Deaf may strongly identify with
Deaf culture, making it hard to make generalizations about "people with
disabilities."  It may also be more difficult to thread apart the ways in
which income, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality shape specific aspects
of disability.

In regards to Andrew Clark's comment to Gerard Goggin re:
impairment/disablement and design, another FANTASTIC book on that is:

Pullin, C. (2011). Design meets disability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cheers,
Meryl Alper
Ph.D. Student in Communication
Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
University of Southern California
merylalper.com