Disability and New Media

Katie Ellis, Mike Kent

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780415835923
• eBook ISBN: 9781136832659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: UI/UX Design
• Index: Social Sciences

Disability and New Media examines how digital design is triggering disability when it could be a solution. Video and animation now play a prominent role in the World Wide Web and new types of protocols have been developed to accommodate this increasing complexity. However, as this has happened, the potential for individual users to control how the content is displayed has been diminished. Accessibility choices are often portrayed as merely technical decisions but they are highly political and betray a disturbing trend of ableist assumption that serve to exclude people with disability. It has been argued that the Internet will not be fully accessible until disability is considered a cultural identity in the same way that class, gender and sexuality are. Kent and Ellis build on this notion using more recent Web 2.0 phenomena, social networking sites, virtual worlds and file sharing.

Many of the studies on disability and the web have focused on the early web, prior to the development of social networking applications such as Facebook, YouTube and Second Life. This book discusses an array of such applications that have grown within and alongside Web 2.0, and analyzes how they both prevent and embrace the inclusion of people with disability.

Part I
At the Crossroads

1
Universal Design in a Digital World

“Web accessibility enables everyone to utilize websites, regardless of personal capability or technology used.”

(Glenda Watson Hyatt, 2009)

“In the Maguire case we now have a firm worldwide precedent that inaccessible Web sites can be and are illegal.”

(Joe Clark, 2002)

When Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, an employee of Moscow-based ElcomSoft, travelled to the United States in 2001 to demonstrate the Advanced eBook Processor at the Def Con hacker show in Las Vegas, he was arrested by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) under the United States’ Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA criminalizes technologies which circumvent a program’s access controls (such as DRM) with regard to their copyright — Sklyarov’s software was designed to remove such restrictions on Adobe eBook format files, thereby allowing them to be accessed on other platforms. Sklyarov’s arrest attracted considerable media attention and an international internet movement — freeSklyarov — swept the blogosphere. When Sklyarov was found not guilty — in large part due to the complicated nature of the DMCA — the extent of control that publishers could expect when releasing their content digitally became tenuous. The disability community likewise became concerned about the implications these legal measures would have on the development and use of such assistive technologies — although not their primary motivation, and not referred to in court documents nor in ElcomSoft’s (Katalov, 2001) press release, the Advanced eBook Processor benefited people with disability as it enabled the copying of Adobe eBooks into more accessible formats.

The legal ramifications of manipulating data in order to access it are of significance to many people with disability. Wilkinson feared that the case represented a precedent:

developers of screen readers or other access software who find ways to access data may face prosecution themselves if the methods they use or the access they provide is deemed to constitute an infringement of the intellectual property rights of the companies that develop and own major operating systems. (Wilkinson, 2001)

The ElcomSoft case highlighted the way that corporations seek to maximize their profits by trying to force consumers to buy their products — even though these may not be in a format appropriate to their needs. The ability to access Adobe eBooks on different platforms is an example of universal design and a recognition of consumer demand; the Advanced eBook Processor benefited both people with disability and those without. Universal design is a core tenet of accessibility for people with disability, both within and outside the digital arena. While guidelines should be established to benefit as many people as possible, universal design is a broad concept which allows for accessibility on an individual level through adaptation. As Greg Vanderheiden suggests:

if you want to talk about accessibility, you have to talk about a single person. You can never talk about something being accessible to all people … So, you can’t create a one page fits all. But you can create a one page that can be adapted to fit a very, very wide variety. (quoted in Ellcessor, 2010)

Accessibility and usability are important features of universal design. While accessibility enables people with disability to access the web, usability refers to simple and straightforward web content that can be used by all with minimal specialized knowledge (Ellcessor, 2010). This book seeks to explore accessibility and usability in the context of web 2.0 platforms and connections, and to question the ways disability is reproduced and created in them. Before considering specific case studies and the ways in which they relate to a cultural construction of disability in later chapters, in this chapter, first, we develop a critical understanding of the forces that are driving universal design in the online environment and we examine popular perceptions about the potential internet technology holds for greater participation in social life for the disability community. Second, we examine the W3C, the main organization responsible for setting internet standards. Following this, we turn to various legal challenges in relation to accessibility and the ways they have been influenced by conflicting and confusing government policy. In the next section of the chapter, we suggest that recent changes in community expectations have reconfigured the way accessibility is understood and approached, this is highlighted with case studies, including the Sydney Olympics website and that of Target.com in the United States. Finally, we assess a new term in web accessibility — “accessibility 2.0” — the capacity to access information in the format of choice when working within the largely unstructured environment of user-generated content.

Driving Universal Design in the Online Environment

Despite a more widespread awareness of accessibility amongst web developers, as web 2.0 becomes increasingly complex and reliant on graphics and diversity of content, accommodating for the needs of people with disability could potentially become a low priority due to perceived financial and time constraints. While it can be argued that the web is more accessible now than even just a few years ago, most new advances in technology are usually inaccessible at the inception stage. Rather than being an integral part of their roll-out, accessibility only comes later, usually as a reaction to demand and not by way of proactive intention. Joshua Miele, a research scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center believes that people designing new technologies should change their approach and make a serious commitment to universal design and in-depth planning in the initial stages. Miele, as cited by Martinez-Cabrera (2010), claims this “really would be an amazing new world.”

This “new world” discourse is invoked by both people with disability and the popular press. As Glenda Watson Hyatt (aka the left thumb blogger) articulates: “For someone who has always struggled to communicate verbally and who has often felt isolated and alone when in group gatherings, social networking has opened a world to me” (Watson Hyatt, 2008). While Watson Hyatt is an avid accessibility and disability advocate, the popular press, by comparison, does not usually consider the social responsibility nor civil rights requirement to make the web fully accessible — nor indeed recognize the flow-on benefits for able-bodied users (Ellcessor, 2010). By suggesting that the web enables access to the complete range of social activity for all — including work, sex, education, and recreation — these popular articles disregard the problems frequently faced by people with disability trying to access this new world. For example, online shopping is frequently celebrated in the popular press. Although we agree that the advent of online shopping has improved the lives of people with disability in life affirming and radical ways, this says more about how difficult it was to access offline shopping than it does about how easy it is to access the online version. By accepting systemic inaccessibility, people with disability are manipulated into reaffirming the “normality” of their oppressor and, by extension, their own perceived difference. Low-profile accessibility issues — such as inaccessible blogs or missing alternative texts (alt text) for images and scans — must be addressed alongside more high-profile cases of inaccessible websites such as Target.com or the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

The increasing use of DRM software to protect online content from copyright infringement further complicates any attempt to access the information in alternative formats. Sklyarov’s arrest for breaching the DMCA motivated disability activists to consider the exclusionary nature of DRM, despite copyright allowances for people with print impairments:

Mr Sklyarov’s case broke new legal ground and has been controversial for several reasons. Among these reasons are its potentially profound implications for those writing access software for use by people with disability. EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] Intellectual Property Attorney Robin Gross states, “Dmitry programmed a format converter which has many legitimate uses, including enabling the blind to hear e-books … The idea that he faced prison for this is outrageous.” (Wilkinson, 2001)

The severe consequences of violating the DMCA foreshadowed a potential for further problems for people with disability attempting to access information via new technology. Digital rights management has consequences for those reconfi guring portals and platforms in different ways and it is time for web designers and programmers, as well as legislators and corporate leaders, to address this issue. The Advanced eBook Processor had been used by both people with vision impairments, seeking to access inaccessible documents and others who wanted to copy an eBook from one computer to another. The case represented an astonishing deployment of criminal law to enforce copyright, particularly since a national (US) law was used to charge someone from another country. Many countries seek to regulate and influence the development of new media by passing laws such as the DMCA and the Australian Broadcast Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999. While these laws are technically limited to a single sovereign territory, they still have the capacity to affect those who reside in, or wish to do business with, that territory. Although not an American citizen, Sklyarov was charged with several offenses including conspiracy, trafficking, and copyright infringement (Wilkinson, 2001). This was despite the fact that these offenses were allegedly committed in Russia — outside the jurisdiction of United States’ law.

The manipulation of data was central to the grand jury’s decision to indict Sklyarov. As all accessibility software involves the manipulation of data, the fear is that unless permission is explicitly granted in each instance, any developer of accessibility software could face the same fate as Sklyarov (although in 2002, a jury found that ElcomSoft had not wilfully violated United States’ law). The legal system chose to foreground compliance with copyright legislation, even though this negated anti-discrimination initiatives. This cavalier disregard for the impact on people with disability is not really new in society, but many expected better now that guidelines exist to address this issue.

Invoking disability law in the online arena has been problematic due to both its subjectivity and confusion concerning governance. Accessibility operates in two ways — legal and professional. Voluntary guidelines around web accessibility are recommended by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) section of the W3C, while legal standards in the United States are governed by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which applies to Federal agencies and their contractors in the United States, and by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In 2006, more than 70 percent of commercial sites failed to meet either the recommendations of the WAI or the requirements of Section 508 (Ellcessor, 2010: 291). The various branches of the internet public service such as the W3C influence the discourse of accessibility. Yet while these bodies often argue that they make technical rather than political decisions, the two are intimately linked.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Tim Berners-Lee established the W3C in 1994 in order to maintain consistency and compatibility across the internet. It aims to enhance the web’s functionality through universality and operates on a broad scale to develop guidelines and specifications by means of consensus and endorsement from the wider community. However, the W3C is a technical organization and its guidelines for accessibility, although encouraged, are not legally enforced. Without dispute, accessibility is regarded as an important factor. According to the 1999 WAI guidelines, web content developers should scrutinize and prioritize aspects of the online environment in terms of the degree of impact on prospective users. Three accessibility priorities were established:

[Priority 1]: A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents.

[Priority 2]: A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents.

[Priority 3]: A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents. (W3C, 1999)

Each priority group delineates a large number of checkpoints. For example, Priority 1 is divided into seven sections and has a total of 16 checkpoints, encompassing features such as providing a text equivalent for non-text elements. Using style sheets and logical tab orders come under Priorities 2 and 3 respectively. The sliding scale of these priorities has been embraced to a greater or lesser extent by the various companies and individuals developing content for the web. The categorization was endorsed by the White House in 1997 and following a recent update is now known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0.

While many Australian universities initially adopted Priority 1, in the last few years several have taken up adopting Priority 2 as well. Yet an accessibility audit of a number of Australian university websites in 2003 found that 98 percent failed to meet basic criteria. When this audit was repeated in 2007, inaccessibility had increased to 100 percent (Alexander and Rippon, 2007). This disappointing result reveals a problematic tendency of accessibility being most devalued in the environments where it is most required. The full inclusion of people with disability in the tertiary arena is vital for social change to occur on a broader level — both through the education of people with disability and through exposure to diversity for all people.

This lack of compli...

Table of contents

• Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I At the Crossroads
• Part II How Did We Get Here?
• Part III Where to Next?
• Bibliography
• Index