Disability on the Net
Stephanie J. Coopman
Communication Studies
San José State U
San José, CA 95192-0112
408-924-5366
stephanie@roguecom.com
Abstract | Introduction | Images of Disability | Disability and Community | Method | Pragmatics of Disability | Politics of Disability | Disability as Community | Conclusion | References
In this paper, I examine disability sites as narrative texts, in which web authors construct for and with visitors/readers representations of disability, activism, and civil rights. I analyze how authors use places in cyberspace to construct particular views of disability and the disability community. First, I discuss disability as a social, cultural, and political construction. Second, I explore notions of community, particularly as they apply to the Internet. Third, I analyze specific disability websites. Finally, I discuss the implications of my analysis.
Culture plays an integral role in the social construction of disability both in the production and product of disability. That is, different cultures construct disability in different ways (disability in culture) and persons with disabilities construct their own cultures that are distinctly different from nondisabled cultures (disability as culture). The present analysis views views disability as culture. Shuter (1998) asserts: "Culture is the most important global communication issue in the 1990s and the 21st century" (p. 41). Although there are many different definitions of culture, all point to an implicit or explicit relationship with communication. Hall (1997) provides a fairly comprehensive definition:
Thus, members of a culture share similar interpretations and similar representations of the world. Those similarities in interpretation and representations are evident in cultural practices performed by the group. It is through communication, language and nonverbal messages, that we represent and perform cultural practices with others. The emphasis here is on the production of culture in everyday interactions. In this way, culture is socially contructed.
The link between communication and culture is not one-directional. As Agar (1994) observes: "Language fills the spaces between us with sound; culture forges the human connection through them. Culture is in language, and language is loaded with culture" (p. 28). The symbols we use, both verbal and nonverbal, arise out of the culture into which we were born. In turn, we create culture through the symbols we use. Hall (1997) describes this intersection of culture and communication: "So it is through culture and language . . . that the production and circulation of meaning takes place" (Hall, 1997, p. 5). We define ourselves based on cultural and societal norms, both in terms of similarities with others and differences with others. So culture is about commonality, what we share as a group, and differences, what makes our group different from another group.
Politics is the third piece of the disability puzzle. Early conceptualizations of culture and communication took an apolitical view of cultural processes. Yet cultural is inherently political in that some participants exert greater influence in cultural activities (e.g., rituals, practices) than others. Socially constructing disability as culture (or multiple subcultures) implies the ability to participate in that construction. Participation requires access to discourse about disability. Historically, persons with disabilities did not enjoy such access, and those without disabilities, or the temporarily able-bodied (TABS; Peters, 1996; Stone, 1997), defined what constituted disability (e.g., Corker, 1998; Hevy, 1997; Oliver, 1990). The result, Peters (1996) argues, is: "People with disabilities have largely assimilated these tarnished images in society and the academy" (p. 219). More recently, disability has become a contested term, as persons with disabilities gain a voice in public discourse and reject restrictive and derogatory definitions of disability. Oliver (1990) argues: "Disabled people . . . have realized that dominant definitions of disabilty pose problems for individual and group identity and have begun to challenge the use of disablist language" (p. 3). The power to name, define, and label are crucial in constructing identity. Promoting changes in language such as "persons with disabilities," "differently abled," "alternative learner," rather than "handicapped" or more derogatory terms, are not mere linguistic exercises. Rather,
Although Oliver (1996) argues that persons with disabilities are more an empowered collective than a community, Linton (1998) observes that disability necessarily binds people together. She reasons that as a community, persons with disabilities "are all bound together, not by [a] list of collective symptoms but by the social and political circumstances that have forged us as a group" (p. 4). Linton (1998) further argues:
Traditionally, those who share particular beliefs or values are labeled members of an interpretive community. Machin and Carrithers (1996) argue that such a conceptualization of community suggests a static, rigid approach to community that does not correspond with everyday life. Communities arise from conversations in which participants may enter and leave, yet the community remains. These communities of improvisation share "the sense of mutability and historicity which runs throughout. The conversation itself endures, but both participants, topics, and attitudes can, and do, change continuously" (p. 350). Community thus becomes process and product. Participants engage in conversation, the process of community, and share common experiences and histories. Communities as sites of improvisation, rather than interpretation, provide a richer and more useful approach to considering community in cyberspace. In discussing cybercommunities, Fernback (1999) argues that such communities are symbolic, socially constructed through computer-mediated interactions. Unbounded by place and space, cybercommunities are more communities of improvisation than interpretive communities. "Virtual" communities are "real" in the sense that "social practices are embedded in virtual interactions; virtual community has a felt nature for its inhabitants" (Fernback, 1999, p. 217). They are also at once local and global, "glocalized . . . . as worldwide connectivity and domestic matters intersect" (Wellman & Gulia, 1999, p. 187).
Communities may also be at once virtual and physical. Mele (1999) traces the story of the residents of a low-income housing development, Robert S. Jervay Place, in Wilmington, NC, as they fought to participate in the development's demolition and rebuilding. The narrative reveals how a geographical community was fostered and made "real" in cyberspace. The residents who challenged the housing authority's plans used the Internet to organize and gather information to bolster their position after earlier attempts through conventional means had failed. Central to the group's strategic use of the Internet was a website for the housing development, managed by residents. Although the site was useful in presenting historical and cultural information associated with Jervay Place, "the [resident] leaders were quick to make the most of its use as a collective action tool" (Mele, 1999, p. 304). Mele points out that the Internet was the answer to all the residents' organizing and information problems. Still, he argues that for disadvantaged communities, the Internet can prove a powerful tool in facilitating collective action.
Disability websites offer an intriguing window into the practice and process of community as they provide a space for the voices of persons with disabilities. In my exploration of disability websites I asked, "How are disability and the disability community constructed and represented on websites authored by persons with disabilities?"
The narrative form provides a way to define the self as well as social relationships. As Riessman (1993) observes: "Narratives are laced with social discourses and power relations, which do not remain constant over time" (p. 65). Narrative implies a differentiation between those with power and those without. For persons with disabilities, their story was often told by others, and clearly identified disability with powerlessness. However, as noted previously, persons with disabilities are beginning to exercise their voices in telling their own stories and defining their own identities. The possibility of resisting the status quo through narrative is one example of what Lull (1995) describes as the incompleteness or fragility of hegemonic processes. Instances of counter-hegemony, in which individuals resist the status quo, are evident in the writings, websites, and everyday conversations of people who have been historically disenfranchised. As Lull (1995) observes, resisting or transcending the status quo often involves using the same tools, but fashioned to produce different meaning: "Expressions of the dominant ideology are sometimes reformulated to assert alternative, often completely resistant or contradictory messages. This is frequently accomplished in humorous, sarcastic ways" (p. 39). In examining disability websites, I was interested in the stories web authors told, how they engaged visitors, and the ways in which they (re)presented definitions and images of disability.
Lubin primarily concentrates on the pragmatics of disability--how to obtain resources essential for independent living. He constructs disability as a problem to be solved through gathering relevant information and applying necessary resources. disABILITY Information and Resources provides an instrumental function for persons with disabilities, serving as a guide for WWW sources. Lubin's briefly and matter-of-factly refers to his own disability at the bottom of first page: "These pages were created and are maintained solely by Jim Lubin, who is a C2 quadriplegic, completely paralyzed from the neck down and
dependent on a ventilator to breathe. I use an keyboard/mouse emulator with a sip and puff switch to type morse codes." The only other mention of his disability on the site is under the "Selected Documents." Lubin includes a link to "Information about Transverse Myelitis" and states, "this is how I became a respirator dependent quadriplegic."
The site is organized into eight major sections that are listed on the first page: Categories, Other Sites I've Done, Politics, Spotlight, Free Presciption Medicine, Just a few of the latest additions, Databases, and Selected Documents. The first section, Categories, lists 23 categories such as Accessibility Design Resources, Resources for Caregivers, Disabilities Organizations, Legal and Advocacy Resources, and Wheelchair and Mobility Products. Next is a list of four other disability-related sites Lubin has developed, including Quadraplegic List and Vent Users' Support Page. "Politics" includes sites that directly address disability, such as The Disability Rights Activist and Unique Peoples Voting Project, as well as sites associated with broader political issues, such as 2000Vote.com and Congress.org--Your Link to Congress. The "Spotlight" section primarily indexes disability-centered websites, as with Cornucopia of Disability Information (CODI) and Disability News Service, and also includes more general health-related sites, as with the U.S. government's Healthfinder and the commercial venture, HealthAtoZ.
The site's plain look reflects the importance of visual accessibility. Although newer, more sophisticated voice software programs for persons with visual impairments more easily handle complex sites, older programs read only left to right. Thus, the trend toward webpages formatted in tables, such as this page, made sites inaccessible for many people with visual impairments. No software programs read image maps or graphics, so graphics-intensive pages often reveal little information to persons with visual disabilities. Lubin includes what are called "ALT" tags for every graphic on the website. Embedded in the HTML code, these tags describe the graphics and are often visible on the page before the graphic downloads. The voice software programs then read these tags.
Images included on many disability pages edge the bottom of the disABILITY Information and Resources main page. These graphics are hyperlinked to organizations, chat rooms, or disability policy statements, representing themes of accessibility and community:
The first graphic, Best Viewed with Any Browser, refers to Cari D. Burstein's campaign to fight the increasing trend of developing websites for specific browsers. Bobby, developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), provides an "analysis of [webpage] accessibility is based on the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines." The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) sponsors another the campaign for website accessibility. The Web Access Symbol indicates that a site "contains accessibility features to accommodate the needs of disabled users. Disability Chat is just one of many services offered on the #Disabled Channel Services Homepage.
Abstract
The signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990 did much to bring the disability movement into the public consciousness and discourse in the U. S. It also served to crystallize and further energize the disability community. Nowhere is this more evident than on the World Wide Web. However, with the potential to reach individuals world-wide, the Internet has vaulted the disability movement from local to global levels. In this paper, I examine disability sites as narrative texts, in which web authors construct for and with visitors/readers representations of disability, activism, and civil rights. I analyze how authors use places in cyberspace to construct particular views of disability and the disability community. Introduction
The intersection of disability, the Internet, and community forms the basis of this essay. For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, societies, institutions, groups, and individuals have ignored, villified, persecuted, oppressed, rejected, scapegoated, ostracized, and marginalized persons with disabilities. Without physical, financial, psychological, and discursive access, the vast majority of persons with disabilities remained outsiders in their own local communities, prevented from participating in public events and discourse. The Internet profoundly changed the ability of persons with disabilities to access public spaces and conversations. In turn, this access produced disability communities that are transforming representations of disability, as well as increasing accessibility for persons with disability in all facets of everyday life.Social, Cultural, and Political Images of Disability
The intersections of disability, the Internet, and community entail a theoretical convergence of social, cultural, and political constructions of disability. Social constructionism provides the fundamental basis for current conceptualizations of disability. Historically, disability social constructions of disability have centered on the individual; an individual dependent on others for everyday functioning. The terms "dependent" and "disability" are thus fused together, constructing those with disabilities as unable to live independently. Oliver argues that "the idea of dependency has been used to socially construct, or perhaps, more accurately, socially reconstruct the problem of disability" (p. 81). Moreover, Bérubé (1998) states that "the definition of disability, like the definition of illness, is inevitably a matter of social debate and social construction" (p. x, emphasis omitted). This view of disability as socially constructed proved an important step away from the traditional medical and cognitive models of disability. That is, disabilities exist, yet their implications are constructed in interaction. Agreeing that disability is socially constructed suggests that what we mean by "disability" evolves and changes. Adopting a social constructionist approach to disability also emphasizes the centrality of communication in delineating what is meant by disability. This powerful conceptual shift turns attention away from individual bases of disability to the ways in which we construct disability in interaction and in mediated communication.
Culture is concerned with the production and the exchange of meanings--the 'giving and taking of meaning'--between the members of a society or group. To say that two people belong to the same culture is to say that they interpret the world in roughly the same ways and can experss themselves, their thoughts and feelings about the world, in ways which will be understood by each other (p. 2).
implicit in these new language metaphors is the recognition that to be labelled is to be (de)valued as a person and is an explicit challenge, both of the disability community and of the academy, to come to terms with self (Peters, 1996, p. 219).
Disability as politics recognizes that power is inherent in all relationships, and that for persons with disabilities, power to define who they are and their role in society primarily lies in the hands of others. Disability and Community
Community's utility as a metaphor may parallel that of family ("Our company is just one big happy family!") and village ("Our department is a village") in their overuse and abuse. Still, several authors frame disability as community and the term nonetheless can serve as a useful heuristic tool. Webster's 1913 Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines community as, "Common possession or enjoyment; participation." Community may also refer to: "Common character; likeness." More recently, Wordsmyth (1999) lists one definition of community as, "the state of being joined together by shared interests." Meriam-Webster's (2000) definition likely best fits the notion of community applicable here: "a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests." In this last definition, community stems from shared understandings grounded in similar life experiences.
Disabled people, across the broadest spectrum of disability, have solidified as a group. Although this group identity has certainly not been comfortably embraced by all disabled people, a strong disability alliance has led to civil rights victories and the foundation of a culturally identified disabled community (p. 5).
For Linton, the power to voice one's own cultural narrative is at the center of the disability community. In his discussion of disability arts and culture, Hevey (1997) observes that "disabled people have not an input, let along a controlling interest, in culture and representation done in our name" (p. 209).Method
Asking how disability is constructed on websites necessitates a descriptive, primarily qualitative approach to the study. A website is a text, an "artifact that has been interpreted holistically as a form, style, or genre" (Lindlof, 1995, p. 51). Textual analysis involves situating texts (in this case, disability websites) historically, in relationship to each other, and within the authors' and readers' frames of experience. Texts exist, influence, and are influenced by the larger enviroments in which they are embedded. Thus, I examined disability sites as narrative texts, in which web authors construct for and with visitors/readers representations of disability, activism, and civil rights. I analyzed how authors use places in cyberspace to construct particular views of disability and the disability community. The Pragmatics of Disability
Jim Lubin developed disABILITY Information and Resources as part of his extensive web activities. Featured in several published articles focusing on disability (see Jim Lubin Closeup for a list), Lubin has created an active presence on the WWW. His primary site, Jim Lubin's Home Page includes two versions, graphics and text-only. The graphics versions displays a rich assortment of images and audio. The text only side facilitates ease of reading for visitors with older browsers or voice software that reads text.
disABILITY Information and Resources includes minimal graphics and focuses on information essential to disability access. The background is light yellow, text is black, links are blue. The top of the page incorporates a single graphic, the traditional disability image (person in a wheelchair), shown here on the left. However, the graphic background is a blue sky with clouds. The bottom of the first page contains the remaining graphics, hyperlinked to other organizations or pages.
Lubin's site indexes a variety of WWW resources. 
 from Justice For All website | Although Lubin clearly emphasizes the pragmatics of disability, he nonetheless subtly promotes a view of disability that underscores activism and independent living. Links to sites such as Ability to Independence, Computer for Handicapped Independence Program, and Justice For All (a disability rights organization), reveal the necessary entailment of politics in the practice of living with disability. That is, Lubin suggests that living independently and exercising one's Constitutional rights naturally follow from the practical experience of disability. |
disABILITY Information and Resources incorporates community into its pragmatic approach. Lubin promotes networking by including an entire page indexing of cyberspaces for disability chat. The other sites Lubin developed: Quadraplegic List, Transverse Myelitis Internet Club, and Vent Users' Support Page. These pages, including Disabled Chat, contain a welcome message, explicit instructions on how to use the various options for Internet communication, the purpose of each group, and an invitation to join one or more of the many online gatherings. Links to community-promoting organizations, such as Through the Looking Glass, based in Berkeley, CA,
The Politics of Disability
As with disABILITY Information and Resources, Adrienne Rubin Barhydt's website, The Disability Activist, contains minimal graphics and maximum text. However, the similarities stop there, as activism is Barhydt's narrative center. From the first topic that links to her discussion of Why Disability Rights?, Barhydt makes her case for involvement in the disability rights movement. Her site includes pages such as Tools for Activists, Conferences, Demonstrations, and Other Events, Follow the Issues that Affect Our Lives, The Media Don't Really See Us, and Yes, Your Vote Matters. This extensive site primarily functions as an index of disability rights websites, as well as providing some original content. Barhydt comments on each site indexed, such as this entry for the Grassroots Lobbying Manual on the Tools for Activists page: "by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation is a thorough guide to lobbying beginning with defining your goal." She also includes a quote from the manual.
The website shares several graphics with the disABILITY Information and Resources. Barhydt prominently displays the Web Access Symbol on the top center of the first page. The bottom of the page includes the Best Viewed with Any Browser logo and the Bobby Approved seal. In line with the more activitist tone of the site, Barhydt includes a Free Speech Online Blue Ribbon Campaign graphic,
| linked to the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) free speech website. VTW is "a New York-based citizen-based Internet civil liberties group." However, although Net surfers can access the site, VTW has not updated it since February 20, 1998, due to lack of funds. Nonetheless, the VTW did succeed in spreading awareness of free speech issues on the Internet, if the ubiquity of the group's campaign graphics are any indication. |  |
In the Why Disability Rights? page, Barhydt explains that she was politically active before becoming disabled, but was not aware of the discrimination faced by persons with disabilities. Her activism stems from the pragmatics of disability and incorporates her rejection of stereotypical constructions of disability. Barhydt writes:
Do you know what people with disabilities want? Nothing special, nothing unusual. We want to be able to attend our neighborhood school, to use the public library, to go to the movies, to get on a bus to go shopping downtown or to visit friends and family across town or across the country. We want to be able to get into our neighborhood polling place to vote with everyone else on election day. We want to be able to get married. We want to be able to work. We want to be able to provide for our children. We want high quality, affordable medical care.* [see story below] We want to be seen as real people, as a part of society, not someone to be hidden away, or pitied, or given charity. We reject media portrayals that show us as evil, or pitiful, or super-cripples. We just want to be seen as what we are - regular people.Earlier on the page, Barhydt describes the difficulties she encountered maneuvering around her neighborhood in a wheelchair. With few cut curbs and cluttered sidewalks, a simple trip to the grocery store became an expedition. Worse was her visit to a physician's office:
*Do you have time for another horror story? This highlights the kind of attitude that leads to discrimination. My family doctor recommended that I see a gynecologist and gave me a doctor's name. I called to check accessibility and the receptionist told me that I probably could get in okay with the wheelchair but she really didn't think it was a good idea for me in a wheelchair to sit in a waiting room full of pregnant women. What did she think? That they'd look at me and give birth to monsters?Barhydt challenges others' definitions of disability and constructs disability as normal. That is, she notes that disability does not discriminate, transcending race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and age. Rejecting dominant notions of disability means accepting persons with disabilities as "regular people." Thus, disability as politics involves exerting influence in the effort to achieve a full voice in society.
Frustrations with physical and social barriers to access served as the impetus for Barhydt to construct disability as politics. However, the injustices persons with disabilities suffer in their daily lives form the basis of Barhydt's activist campaign. Links to resources on the WWW focus on the rights of persons with disabilities as well as how to exercise those rights. The new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page demonstrates Barhydt's commitment to political activism. For example, she lists websites that answer questions such as Where can I get help to enforce my rights? , What are the rights of disabled people seeking employment?, and What are my rights to accessible transportation? In addition, she includes, I am writing a paper for school on on a disability related topic. Where can I get information? Thus, part of disability as politics focuses on providing everyone, whether disabled or nondisabled, with useful information on disability issues.
The Organizations, Individuals and Agencies page provides a glimpse into the disability community's diversity. Groups range from the traditional, such as the National Organization on Disability and the National Association of the Deaf, to the more nontraditional, such as The Yellow Dream Machine Planet - Disability Rights (advocates for children with disabilities) and the Madness Group (mental health support group). Barhydt includes a description of each website, but does not suggest joining any particular group.
However, Barhydt leaves no doubt that site visitors need to get involved in advocating for disability rights. The Disability Activist website includes pages such as Your Input Needed, listing groups, studies, and organizations requesting information from people with disabilities, and Follow the Issues that Affect Our Lives, such as housing, managed care, and employment. For Barhydt, the practice of disability requires activism in all arenas related to disability rights.
Disability as Community
The Disability Social History Project website begins with a nearly blank white page. The top left corner has a link to the text only version; the top right corner links to the Disability History Home page, the graphics version. The center of the page contains an animated graphic that asks:
Did you know that . . .The questions offer an intriguing invitation to explore the site.
. . . Helen Keller was a Socialist?
. . . Disable people were the first to be exterminated in Nazi Germany?
. . . Disabled people won a significant legislative victory after holding the longest sit-in at a federal building?
The text-only version looks much like the disABILITY Information and Resources and The Disability Activist websites, with two exceptions: the use of font colors, such as Welcome to the Disability Social History Project! , and tables. The use of colors is somewhat surprising in that the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines states, "Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color." The site does not indicate that it is "Bobby Approved." Still, all images on the graphics side of the site include ALT tags and image maps include text links as well. In my discussion of the site, I will focus on the graphics version.
Patricia Chadwick (site designer) and Stephen Dias (site content) created the Disability Social History Project website. In the "About the Producers section," Chadwick describes her experience producing radio programs and a video on disability; Dias has long been active in disability issues and currently works for the library of the California Medical Association. They do not refer to themselves as disabled, although they describe the project as "an opportunity for disabled people to reclaim our history and determine how we want to define ourselves and our struggles." Thus, I concluded that the Disability Social History Project website met my criterion of a site about disability created by persons with disabilities.
Chadwick and Dias clearly construct disability as community. For example, the About page begins with,"THIS IS A COMMUNITY PROJECT." In the overview of the project, the webspinners state:
The Disability History Project is a community history project and we welcome your participation. . . . People with disabilities have an exciting and rich history that should be shared with the world. Please email or mail us anything that you would like to see become part of the Disability Social History Project, including your disabled heroes, important events in disability history, and resources.The Links page covers a broad range of disability websites, including topic area such as history, media, art and culture, disability studies, ethnic minorities with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and women with disabilities. Chadwick and Dias expand the disability community presented by Lubin and Barhydt to include the study of disability. Thus, Chadwick and Dias fold academics into the disability community.
The home page for the Disability Social History Project visually centers on the graphic below (slightly reduced here, resulting in the fuzzy text):
The images connote an active disability community, with the use of bright colors and whimsical folk-art drawings. The quotes framing the project's title represent both the old and new aspects of the disability community. Helen Keller's (1913) words: "With our hearts let us see, with your hands let us break every chain. Then, indeed, shall we know a better and nobler humanity," are juxtaposed with those of Neil Marcus (1993): "Disability is not a 'brave struggle' or 'courage in the face of adversity'... disability is an art. It's an ingenious way to live." Keller's quote is non-confrontational, yet still suggests a plea for equal access. Marcus offers a criticism of common representations of disability evident in everyday interactions, and particularly in the media (e.g., Darke, 1997; Woodward, 1994). The graphics and quotes display the unity and diversity in the disability community. Visual balance and color suggest unity; traditional images (person in a wheelchair) and words (the Keller quote) contrasted with nontraditional images (person walking) and words (the Marcus quote) suggest diversity. The Links and Timeline pages also indicate a commitment to a broad and diverse definition of the disability community.
The Disability Social History Project website addresses culture in three ways. First, in the Overview, the authors state:
Disability has existed since the beginning of time. The ways in which people with disabilities have been treated and represented in art and media varies dramatically throughout history and among different cultures. . . . The ways in which disabled people have acted and have been treated and viewed must be examined within the social, political, economic, and religious climates of the times and cultures.Here, the authors recognize the influence of culture on how people define and interpret disability. Second, later in the Overview, the authors observe that persons with disabilities struggle within a culture of oppression; uncovering the hidden history of persons with disabilities is a step toward freedom. Third, the notion of common experiences permeates the site, particularly on the People page, which describes both famous, and not-so-famous, persons with disabilities, such as Harriet Tubman, Dorothea Lange, and Wilma Mankiller.
Just as the pragmatic disABILITY Information and Resources contains elements of politics and community, and the political The Disability Activist incorporates pragmatic and community components, the Disability Social History Project integrates elements of pragmatism and politics with its community theme. A pragmatic approach to disability is most evident in the Links page's Resources and Directories and Women with Disabilities categories. Although Chadwick and Dias list only a handful of links in each of the two categories, they nonetheless include sites with comprehensive disability resources. The Disability Social History Timeline exhibits a political side in its sections on Freak Shows, Disability Militancy in the 1930s, the T-4 Program (the Nazi Germany extermination of adults and children with disabilities), and Women's Symposium. For example, Disability Militancy notes the influence of the labor movement on disability militancy in the 1930s. Strikes by persons with disabilities in what were called "sheltered" workshops, as well as the forming of the League of the Physically Handicapped in New York City, were hallmarks of early disability rights activitism.
Disability Social History Project website constructs a complex image of disability. Persons with disabilities represent a diverse and far-reaching community, rooted in a largely sequestered history that only recent has begun to emerge after thousands of years of suppression. Disability community entails pragmatic and political elements, as well as an activist approach to the past, present, and future.
I examined three exemplar websites covering a range of disability representation: disABILITY Information and Resources, The Disability Rights Activist, Disability Social History Project. Although each incorporated elements of pragmatism, politics, and community, the sites revealed distinct differences in emphases both in their uses of graphics and language. These similarities and differences underscore the hallmarks of the disability community: unity and diversity. Thus, although we may speak of a single disability community, more accurately we should speak of multiple disability communities.
Bérubé, M. (1998). Foreword: Pressing the claim. In S. Linton, Claiming disability: Knowledge and identity (pp. vii-xi). New York: New York University Press.
Corker, M. (1998). Disability in a postmodern world. In T. Shakespeare (Ed.), The disability reader: Social science perspectives (pp. 221-233). London: Cassell.
Darke, P. (1997). Everywhere: Disability on film. In A. Pointon & C. Davies (Eds.), Framed: Interrogating disability in the media (pp. 10-14). London: British Film Institute.
Fernback, J. (1999). There is a there there: Notes toward a definition of cybercommunity. In S. Jones (Ed.), Doing Internet research: Critical issues and methods for examining the Net (pp. 203-220). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gudykunst, W., & Kim, Y. (1997). Communicating with strangers: An approach to intercultural communication , 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hall, S. (Ed.) (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices . London: Sage.
Hevy, D. (1997). Controlling interests. In A. Pointon & C. Davies (Eds.), Framed: Interrogating disability in the media (pp. 209-213). London: British Film Institute.
Lindlof, T. (1995). Qualitative communication research methods . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Linton, S. (1998). Claiming disability: Knowledge and identity . New York: New York University Press.
Lull, J. (1995). Media, communication, culture: A global approach . New York: Columbia University Press.
Machin, D., & Carrithers, M. (1996). From "interpretative communities" to "communities of improvisation." Media, Culture & Society, 18, 343-352.
Mele, C. (1999). Cyberspace and disadvantaged communities: The Internet as a tool for collective action. In M. Smith & P. Kollack (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 290-310). London: Routledge.
Meriam-Webster WWW Dictionary . (2000). Available at: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm
Oliver, M. (1990). The politics of disablement . New York: St. Martin's.
Oliver, M. (1996). Understanding disability: From theory to practice . New York: St. Martin's.
Peters, S. (1996). The politics of disability identity. In L. Barton (Ed.), Disability and society: Emerging issues and insights (pp. 215-234). New York: Longman.
Riessman, C. (1993). Narrative analysis. Qualitative research methods (vol. 30). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Shuter, R. (1998). Revisiting the centrality of culture. In J. Martin, T. Nakayama, & L. Flores (Eds.), Readings in cultural contexts (pp. 38-48). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.
Stone, K. (1997). Awakening to disability: Nothing about us without us . Volcano, CA: Volcano Press.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary . (1913). Available at: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/webster.form.html.
Wellman, B., & Gulia, M. (1999). Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don't ride alone. In M. Smith & P. Kollack (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 167-194). London: Routledge.
Woodward, J. (1994). Boutonnieres. In B. Shawn (Ed.), The ragged edge: The disability experience from the pages of the first fifteen years of the Disability Rag (pp. 25-27). Louisville, KY: The Advocado Press.
Wordsmyth Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus. (1999). Available at: http://www.wordsmyth.net.
Conclusion
Disability websites offer a powerful avenue for persons with disabilities to create their identities, organize, network, and address common problems. Metaphors associated with social constructionism, culture, and politics provided a rich theoretical intersection from which to examine images of disability on the Internet.References
Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: William Morrow and Company.
Roundtable I | Roundtable II | Roundtable III |
Roundtable IV