Restricted Access: "Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation"
Elizabeth Ellcessor
Abstract
Restricted Access investigates digital media accessibility—the processes by which media is made usable by people with particular needs—and argues for conceptualizing access in a way that enables greater participation in all forms of mediated culture. Drawing on disability and cultural studies, this book proposes an interrogatory framework based around issues of regulation, use, content, form, and experience. Using interviews with policy makers and accessibility professionals, analysis of popular culture and archival materials, and an ethnographic study of internet use by people with disabiliti ... More
Restricted Access investigates digital media accessibility—the processes by which media is made usable by people with particular needs—and argues for conceptualizing access in a way that enables greater participation in all forms of mediated culture. Drawing on disability and cultural studies, this book proposes an interrogatory framework based around issues of regulation, use, content, form, and experience. Using interviews with policy makers and accessibility professionals, analysis of popular culture and archival materials, and an ethnographic study of internet use by people with disabilities, it reveals the assumptions that undergird contemporary technologies and participatory cultures. Restricted Access makes the crucial point that if digital media open up opportunities for individuals to create and participate, but that technology facilitates the participation only of those who are already privileged, then its progressive potential remains unrealized.
Keywords:
access,
method,
regulation,
form,
content,
use,
experience
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781479813803 |
| Published to NYU Press Scholarship Online: September 2016 |
DOI:10.18574/nyu/9781479813803.001.0001 |
