Gerard Goggin talk for Digital Inclusion panel, Engaging Innovation conference, Sydney 2-3 Nov 2016

1. Disability & Digital Inclusion:
New Directions in
Transforming Inequalities
Talk for Digital Inclusion panel, Engaging Innovation
conference, Sydney 2-3 Nov 2016
Gerard Goggin/@ggoggin
Dept of Media & Communications, University of Sydney

2. • Disability is a relatively new part of digital inclusion,
inequalities, and divides policy
• Disability has close associations with social and digital
inequalities; disability and accessibility pose particular
issue for digital technology
• Yet disability also offers tremendous opportunities for
focussing work in digital social transformations and
social justice, and indeed more broadly re-imagining
society
• What’s the state of the art of disability and digital
inclusion?
• What would an Australia and international research
and policy agenda look like?

3. • Socially shaped, disability spans a wide variety of different bodies,
conditions, and situations; we can find themselves more or less
“disabled,” identifying or dis-identifying with disability, through the
course of our lives;
• In relation to technology, there are many ways in which barriers,
obstacles, and inaccessibility can be “built-in” systems, rather than
producing “enabling” environments
• Disability has an especially close association with design, offering many
ways to rethink “universal” and “inclusive design”;
• Disability also involves new aspects of literacy, education, and user
support, requiring accessible formats, inclusive education, as well as
drawing attention to cultural and linguistic aspects of digital inequality
(the importance of sign language for Deaf communities, for instance);
• There is a high incident of people with disabilities in the “majority
world”, or “global south” - yet many of the proffered solutions for global
connectivity, such as cheap mobile phones, fall well short of meeting
the needs, preferences, and desires of users with disabilities;
• people with disabilities are marginalized in the research, policy,
technology design, and policy formulation relating to digital inequality.

4. Kerry Dobransky & Eszter Hargittai 2016:
• People with disabilities are “stigmatized and
excluded in many domains of life, with
consequences for their health and wealth”
• “being a marginalized status in its own right,
disability tends to overlaps with other
disadvantaged positions in society, multiplying
exclusion”
• “relatively little research examines how PWD
compare to others in incorporating such resources
[of ICTs] into their everyday life”
Dobransky, K., & Hargittai, E. (2016). Unrealized potential: Exploring
the digital disability divide. Poetics

5. Kerry Dobransky & Eszter Hargittai 2016:
’Findings from a national sample of American adults
show that disability continues to matter when it comes
to how people are incorporating the Internet into their
everyday lives. The findings reveal both problems and
possibilities’
‘PWD are less likely to use the Internet, and they are less
likely to engage in a range of activities even when they
do use it … Even after controlling for demographic factors
[skew to older & lower socioeconomic status), PWD still
trail those without disabilities in Internet adoption’
Dobransky, K., & Hargittai, E. (2016). Unrealized potential: Exploring the
digital disability divide. Poetics, pp.8-9

6. Kerry Dobransky & Eszter Hargittai 2016:
‘When we look at those who are online … [second
level digital divide] ... we find that demographics
explain PWD’s lag in online activities. Once we
control for background, PWD online do not
significantly trail those without disabilities in
engaging in any activity online, and have increased
odds of engaging in five activities: downloading
videos, playing games online, reviewing products or
services, sharing their own content, and posting to
blogs’ (p. 9)
Dobransky, K., & Hargittai, E. (2016). Unrealized potential: Exploring
the digital disability divide. Poetics, pp.8-9

7. Measuring Australia’s Digital
Divide 2016 report
‘For people with disability, digital inclusion is low, but
improving steadily. People with disability have a low
level of digital inclusion (44.4, or 10.1 points below the
national average). However, nationally, their inclusion
has improved steadily (by 2.6 points since 2014),
outpacing the national average increase (1.8 points).’
Definition of ‘disability’: ‘Disability: people in this
category receive either a disability pension, or the
disability support pension’ (p. 7)
Thomas, J, Barraket, J, Ewing, S, MacDonald, T, Mundell, M & Tucker, J
2016, Measuring Australia’s Digital Divide: The Australian Digital Inclusion
Index 2016, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, for Telstra.

8. ‘Over three years,
Access scores increased for … people with disability
(up 4.6 points) [cf. 4.1 points nationally]
Digital Ability also increased for … people with
disability (up 7.7 points) [cf 3.6 points nationally]
Affordability index number fell markedly for seniors
(down 6.8 points) and people in the Q4 income
bracket (down 8 points), and also declined for
Indigenous people (down 4.7 points) and people
with disability (down 4.4 points).’
Thomas, J, Barraket, J, Ewing, S, MacDonald, T, Mundell, M &
Tucker, J 2016, Measuring Australia’s Digital Divide: The Australian
Digital Inclusion Index 2016, Swinburne University of Technology,
Melbourne, for Telstra.

9. Disability inclusion in new forms of
television
‘When this project set out to investigate the ways
Australians with disability access and use VOD, existing
research suggested, despite great potential for
accessibility, that PWD were at risk of being left out of
the VOD revolution. The results not only confirmed this,
they underlined that accessibility to VOD required more
than the provision of captions and AD, although that
remained significant.’
Katie Ellis, Mike Kent, Kathryn Locke & Melissa Merchant, Accessing
Subscription Video on Demand: A Study of Disability and Streaming
Television in Australia, ACCAN, 2016

10. ’None of the Australian V0D [video on demand]
providers have an accessibility policy.’
‘VOD providers in Australia are currently not subject
to any legislation that ensures accessibility, including
the provision of captions.’
‘PWD, including people with vision impairments, do
use VOD and continue to have particular unmet
access needs.
Katie Ellis, Mike Kent, Kathryn Locke & Melissa Merchant, Accessing
Subscription Video on Demand: A Study of Disability and Streaming
Television in Australia, ACCAN, 2016

11. Disability and Digital Inclusion agenda
• greatly improved national-level data on people with
disabilities and digital technologies, based on best
available categories of identifying disability, as well as
best available categories of technology, use, and social
practices;
• systematic data on people with disabilities and digital
technologies internationally, especially countries,
when no or little data is available;
• qualitative research on the diversity of disability and
digital technology users, especially exploring
“intersectional” aspects combining disability, gender,
sexuality, race, caste, income, and other aspects;
• extending research across the new frontiers of digital
society and participation for people with disabilities,
including: TV; e-books; Wi-Fi; wearables; Internet of
Things
• systematic research and policy initiatives on disability
and participatory design

12. reference
Gerard Goggin, ‘Disability and Digital Inequalities:
Rethinking Digital Divides with Disability Theory’,
forthcoming in Theorizing Digital Divides (Routledge,
2017)edited by Massimo Ragnedda & Glenn W.
Muschert