accessibility politics

This page looks at the politics of online accessibility.

It covers -

• orientation
• a politics of online disability?
• studies
• accessible for those with money?

Consumer activism is discussed elsewhere as part of the guide regarding online consumer issues, agencies and legal frameworks

     orientation

Our contention is that online accessibility is both commercially desirable and socially responsible.

However, it has proved to be a low priority for some organisations in the public and private sectors. Arguably that is because internet publishing is still quite new and because of the online invisibility (or merely perceived unimportance) of particular disadvantaged groups.

As a result, improved accessibility is being slowly driven by the courts - and by public embarrassment - rather than best practice.

     a politics of online disability?

The absence of a large body of case law (or merely well-known disputes and settlements) regarding online accessibility is perhaps not surprising, given both -

• the politics of disability in advanced and emerging economies and
• the absence of successful litigation (ie case law breeds case law, fosters activism and legitimate regulatory agencies).

Few sites and online services don't work at all; they merely do not work well ... whether for 'ordinary' users or for those with some disadvantage. Agreement about what constitutes an appropriate degree of functionality - and what can be done to address accessibility problems - has been slow to emerge.

As a blind contact commented to us, many people live in a ghetto of disadvantage, with low expectations and with an investment in navigating through day to day life rather than securing change by lobbying the digerati, particularly those digerati with a Fast Company cyberselfish ethos of entitlement. Barriers impeding access to a building can be highlighted through, for example, a sit-in (or outside of) that location.

Being online supposedly means that in cyberspace no one can tell that you are a dog. However, it also means that often no one can tell that you are having problems - the 'unsighted' for example are out of sight and out of mind - or that barriers are so significant that you do not go online.

A participant in one of our focus groups thus commented that his awareness of building access issues was restricted to "tripping over guide dogs" until he broke two limbs while skiing and learned to appreciate ramps, automatic doors and user-friendly elevators. He was used to fast access to online content and had never encountered accessibility tools such as a speechreader. His organisation's site was flash heavy because "that's what our IT people do".

Change is impeded by the fractious nature of the disability advocacy sector, where inter-organisation disputes are often as intense as campaigns for social equity, where there is disagreement about appropriate objectives and where there is sometimes substantial 'capture' by advocates or service providers.

The US government Understanding the Role of an International Convention on the Human Rights of People with Disabilities paper (PDF) notes a "lack of capacity among international human rights organizations and the disability community to use the human rights machinery in advocacy for disability rights". It comments -

Organizations devoted to the protection of human rights have generally failed to focus on abuses against people with disabilities or to develop the capacity to investigate and report on disability-based human rights violations. In some instances, well-meaning humanitarian assistance organizations have unwittingly perpetuated human rights abuses against people with disabilities through 'charity' programs that serve to perpetuate discriminatory programs that ultimately disempower people with disabilities.

Playwright John Belluso quipped

Everyone, if they live long enough, will become disabled. It is the one minority class which anyone can become a member of at anytime.

     studies

Perspectives are provided by The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York Uni Press 2001) edited by Paul Longmore & Lauri Umansky, Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality (Washington: Georgetown Uni Press 2003) by Jacqueline Switzer, The Disability Rights Movement (Philadelphia: Temple Uni Press 2001) by Doris Zames Fleischer & Freida Zames, Digital Disability: The Social Construction of New Media (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2003) by Christopher Newell & Gerard Goggin, Disability Rights Law and Policy: International & National Perspectives (Berkeley: Transnational 2002) edited by Mary Lou Breslin & Silvia Yee, the collection Disability Studies: Past, Present & Future edited by Len Barton & Mike Oliver, Why I Burned My Book & Other Essays on Disability (Philadelphia: Temple Uni Press 2003) by Paul Longmore and the foucauldian Cultural Locations of Disability (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 2005) by Sharon Snyder & David Mitchell.

Groundings are provided by the Handbook of Disability Studies (Thousand Oaks: Sage 2001) edited by Gary Albrecht, Katherine Seelman & Michael Bury, Transforming Disability into Ability, Policies to Promote Work and Income Security for Disabled People (Paris: OECD 2003) edited by Christopher Prinz, Understanding Disability Policies (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1999) by Robert Drake, The ABC/CLIO Companion to The Disability Rights Movement (New York: ABC/CLIO 1997) by Fred Pelka 1997, Disability Policies in European Countries (The Hague: Kluwer Law 2001) edited by Wim van Oorschot & Bjorn Hvinden, Disability & the Life Course: Global Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2001) edited by Mark Priestley, Simi Linton's Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (New York: New York Uni Press 1998) and Marta Russell's Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract (Monroe: Common Courage Press 1998). We were unimpressed by Disability in Australia: Exposing a Social Apartheid (Sydney: UNSW Press 2005) by Gerard Goggin & Christopher Newell or Foucault & the Government of Disability (Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press 2005) edited by Shelley Tremain.

     accessible to those with money?

Rights theorists have noted that in practice accessible is not the same as free and that government rhetoric about accessibility has not been matched by moves to ensure all developers have easy recourse to particular standards and guidelines. Money remains a hidden barrier to the development of a more accessible web.

In the UK for example the PAS 78 guidelines, developed by the Disability Rights Commission and BSI, cost a substantial £30.

     next page  (Online accessibility litigation)