Gerard Goggin paper for 'Disability & Listening' panel for The Australian Sociological Association (TASA), 26-28 Nov, 2015, Cairns

1. Media, Listening & Disability:
On Not Speaking Otherwise
paper for TASA 2015 - Disability
& Listening panel
Gerard Goggin @ggoggin
Dept of Media & Communications
University of Sydney

2. In recent years, it has become
apparent — from the work of
sociologists, activists, artists,
writers, media makers — that
disability is at the heart of
neoliberalism globally, and that
these oppressive dynamics unfold
very much in regional and local
contexts.

3. disability troubles neoliberal
imagination (& social imaginaries)
• Disability still figures as economic burden (can’t work,
won’t work; too expensive to maintain on welfare - not
‘really disabled’; NDIS will bankrupt Australia etc)
• temporalities of disability don’t suit neoliberalism (too
slow; too intermittent)
• Disability has entered public culture & mainstream, but
with only with limits & on provisos - e.g. ‘celebrity
disabled’ such as Paralympians (cf. Juliet Watson &
Sarah Casey on celebrity feminists in Oz media)
• Disability is too unruly & ungrateful (e.g. why isn’t
charity gratefully received?)

6. Disability troubles
Disability is a ‘specialized’ issue, needing ‘special
arrangements’ (‘accommodations’ that need to be
requested in universities; actually, why are our
universities so slow in embracing students, scholars &
workers with disabilities?)
Disability rights have now arrived; e.g. right to social
support with National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS),
with citizens (consumers) able to ‘direct their own care’
(Dickinson, 2015) - but many services will need to be
delivered by neoliberal means (hence new market
entrants into disability support with NDIS players)

8. Communication & media matter in disability &
social futures … but these are also framed by
neoliberalism
e.g. social media is lauded for its role in
information, political & social participation; but
most platforms are commercially owned -
which at times (often) poses significant issues
& the ‘social imaginaries’ of new media are
often very neoliberal (e.g. ‘sharing’ = Uber) &
don’t include disability
except myth that technology will be the
salvation of disability

10. media (including new media) has as
significant issues with disability as it
does with other, interlinked issues of
indigeneity, race, gender, sex, class, age -
media won’t cover many disability
stories
but disability critiques of media ableism
are very much a minority affair
(‘why don’t you put that on the disability
activism page’? - #JointDestroyer saga
#criparmy ping @katharineannear )
See Ellis & Goggin, Disability & the Media (2015) - bingo!

11. So, this paper looks at role that media
play — in both shaping and enforcing
disability and its closely related
counterpart, normalcy; but also in
offering different cultural platforms
and social models for how we might
re-imagine society.

12. communication - an overarching concept for voice
& listening - is a key elements in culture & social
life, esp. in present conjuncture of digital media
platforms
normative visions of society - ideals of democracy,
justice, equality, participation - also require
accompanying models of communication
John Keane’s ‘monitory democracy’, Manuel Castell’s ‘mass self-
communication’, Nancy Fraser’s counter public spheres & new,
transnational publics, Zizi Papacharissi’s ‘affective publics’,
Martha Nussbaum, social justice, disability, nonhuman animals,
Nick Couldry, voice matters & media justice

13. as yet, communication rarely includes the
diversity, styles, and requirements that are
evident if we take an affirmative, rather than
‘deficit’ model of disability
e.g. what is often termed ‘augmentative or
alternative communication’ (e.g. not normal) can be
seen, rather, as part of the genuine diversity &
variation that is communication
e.g. what was seen as a defect, or impairment,
deafness, requiring correction (oralism) is now
recognized as a rich culture & communication
repertoire - sign language

14. ‘Julia Rems-Smario: A Deaf Woman's Journey From Oralism to ASL -- See Her Success
Today’, 15 May 2015, YouTube

15. Thinking with disability, we need to reimagine
communication - and claim new kinds of
communications rights
Which is what the UN Convention on Rights of
Persons with Disabilities does (but that’s
another story)
Gerard Goggin. ‘Communication Rights and Disability Online: Policy
and Technology after the World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS),’ Information, Communication & Society 18.3 (2015): 327-341.

17. every theory of politics - & democracy -
is a theory of media
every theory of media
is a theory of disability (Jonathan Sterne)
So: every theory of politics - & democracy
& media - is also a theory of disability

18. Against the background of
rethinking communication via
disability, ‘listening’ (Cate Thill,
Tanja Dreher), is an especially rich
set of resources, for interrogating
dominant modes of controlling
people with disability … opening
up the question of democracy, as if
disability mattered.

19. disability & listening
• ‘listening’ has emerged as rich social, cultural, &
political concept – connecting different
realms/sectors/institutions/movements
• ‘For me, the question “who should speak?” is less
crucial than “who will listen?” “I will speak for myself
as a Third World person" is an important position for
political mobilization today. But the real demand is
that, when I speak from that position, I should be
listened to seriously …’ – Gayatri Spivak (1986)
• Especially promising & challenging questions are
raised by thinking about disability & listening

20. Media & listening case
UK welfare reforms –
‘disability benefit scroungers’

26. Australia media & listening cases

27. Closure of ABC
Ramp Up disability blog

31. TEDx Sydney 2015 & #stellaschallenge

36. #JointDestroyer -
Nov 2015 Destroy the Joint controversy

42. Listening,
otherwise

47. references
Tanja Dreher, ‘A partial promise of voice? Digital storytelling and the limits of
listening’ Media International Australia 142 (2012): 157- 166
Tanja Dreher, ‘Speaking up or being heard? Community media interventions
and the politics of listening’ Media, Culture and Society 32.1 (2010): 1-19
Katie Ellis & Gerard Goggin. Disability and the Media (Palgrave, 2015)
Katie Ellis, Gerard Goggin, and Mike Kent. ‘Dis-entanglements of Disability and
Digital Technology’. Fibreculture Journal, forthcoming
Katie Ellis and Gerard Goggin. “Disability Media Participation: Obstacles,
Opportunities, and Politics” Media International Australia 154 (March 2015):
78-88.
Katie Ellis, Gerard Goggin, and Beth Haller (eds.) Routledge Companion to
Disability and Media (2017)
Gerard Goggin. ‘Disability and the Ethics of Listening: New Models for
Democracy and Media’. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
23.4 (2009): 489-502.
Cate Thill ‘Listening for policy change: how the voices of disabled people
shaped Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme,’ Disability and
Society 30.1 (2015): 15-28.