How social media is positively influencing disability activism in the USA.

1. From popular culture to social networking:
Disability media advocacy comes of age
Guest Presenter:
Beth Haller, Ph.D., Department of Mass
Communication and Communication
Studies, Towson University, USA
bhaller@towson.edu

2. Social media benefits for people with certain
impairments

3. Deaf actress Marlee Matlin: “In Twitter
there were no barriers.”

4. Blind Film Critic Tommy Edison

5. Social media activism generally
• Using social media to coordinate group gatherings
• Assembling organized numbers of people
• Using social media to warn like-minded people about
those who are against the group’s activist stance
• Real time updates allows a group to adjust to any
actions against it
• Getting messages to people not directly involved but
still interested in the activism
• Enlist support and/or coverage from the news media
and others around the world

6. Activists harness social media because
that’s where people get their news

7. Pros & cons of social media news

8. Why Facebook matters to people with disability

9. Why New Mobility readers are using Facebook

10. National ADAPT leverages Twitter

11. ADAPT Twitter feed posts
• Pictures from ADAPT protestors and others
• Information about those arrested.
• Links to any media coverage of protests.
• Information so someone who wanted to
participate but couldn’t be in DC could follow
along.
• People not in DC could even become active by
calling the federal legislator in charge of the
budget proposing the cuts via the phone # ADAPT
tweeted.

12. Tweets build a cross-disability
community
A May 3, 2011 tweet said:
“Remember that ADAPT fights for
all disabilities: physical, dd,
psychiatric, blind, deaf, autism,
MCS, everyone. That is why we are
here.”

13. ADAPT protest video makes it onto
CNN web page as iReport

14. ADAPT Minnesota continues the message

15. Disability Rights Education & Defense
Fund (DREDF) YouTube channel
Its YouTube channel has:
• Training videos, such as information helping
parents understand the special education process
and how to advocate for their disabled child
• Disability rights history: “The Power of 504,” a
short documentary video about the 1977 civil
rights demonstration by people with disabilities
that resulted in the first Federal Civil Rights Law
protecting people with disabilities.

16. Social media use during natural
disasters: Nick & Alejandra

17. Alejandra’s Facebook post about their situation

18. Little Free Radical blog

19. Blog article that told Nick’s story

20. Nick’s thank you on Facebook

21. Boston’s 90.9 WBUR Tumblr about Nick

22. NPR Talk of the Nation story about Sandy’s
impact on people with disabilities

23. Science show NOVA focuses on the
people affected by Sandy

24. Inaccessible shelters in NYC
(Photos from 2011 from Hurricane Irene but nothing had changed for Hurricane Sandy.)

25. NY disability activist Mike Volkman says:
“What we are doing now with
Facebook really shows the true
potential of what the Internet can do
to transform our society. We are
seeing changes that rival historically
the invention of the printing press.”

26. Pop culture and activism
• Comedian Josh Blue
• Autism consultant Alex Plank
• Promotion of American Sign Language and
Deaf culture on Switched at Birth
• Teal Sherer’s My Gimpy Life

27. Comedian Josh Blue: “I can say things that
other people might not be able to get away
with because of having a disability.”

28. Alex Plank founded autism social
media site Wrong Planet in 2004

29. Alex Plank became the autism
consultant on FX’s The Bridge in 2012

30. Alex Plank Twitter page

31. ABC Family’s Switched at Birth
embraces ASL & Deaf culture

32. ASL lessons from Switched at Birth

33. Teal Sherer’s web series, ‘My Gimpy Life’

34. Pop culture adds visibility

35. Journalists who cover disability

36. From byline to tweet
I tweeted this to the journalist who wrote the
story on the previous slide. It was information
from a Melbourne activist who found the
National Disability Summit was only allowing 12
people with disability attend for the discounted
rate - $55 versus $1,500.