Disability, Digital Technology, & Communication Rights:

Another Legacy of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)?

paper for Internet Research (IR)Daegu, Korea 22-24 October 2014

Gerard Goggin @ggogginDept of Media & Communications

University of Sydney

• Taking a human rights, media and cultural studies based approach, this paper reviews and analyses the topic of disability, communication rights, digital technology and policy

• Socio-cultural approach to disability & Internet (on which there is still little research)

• paper focusses on the new ways that human rights to communication have been articulated via international law and policy – especially the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS 2003-2005 and WSIS +10 in 2015) as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

2. Disability at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS),2003-2005

• important moment, because disability moved from specialized ICT/telcos engineering/rehabilitation/’special’ accessibility area to register against general conception of information society

• disability still not widely understood/recognized in lead-up/processes/WSIS 2005 itself

WSIS dreaming

‘In the WSIS discourse there is a strong tendency to consider the global digital disparity as a problem in its own right … a romantic fallacy prevailed which proposes that the resolution of information/communication problems, and the bridging of knowledge gaps or inequalities of access to technologies, can contribute to the solution of the world’s most urgent and explosive socioeconomic inequities’ (Cees Hamelink, 2004, p. 283)

WSIS legacies?

The WSIS exemplifies, therefore, the important trends emerging in global governance, encouraging civil society to participate more actively in defining a new global public sphere and to integrate more deeply to developing transnational public policy. (Marc Raboy, 2004b, p. 357)

Disability specific content was completely eradicated from the text, replaced by words like “vulnerable” or “disadvantaged.” Additionally, there was no understandable clarification why disabilities were deleted, while specific mentions of other groups of people such as young, children, women, and indigenous remained. (JSRPD, 2003)

Our Common Vision of the Information Society

13. In building the Information Society, we shall pay particular attention to the special needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups of society, including migrants, internally displaced persons and refugees, unemployed and underprivileged people, minorities and nomadic people.We shall also recognize the special needs of older persons and persons with disabilities. (WSIS, 2003a; WSIS emphasis)

… Bearing in mind that persons with disabilities, especially those in developing countries, are the poorest of the poor, leading to isolation from information and communication and exclusion from the benefits of new and emerging ICTs;Realizing the importance of existing tools such as Braille, sign languages, tactile sign languages, easy-to-read materials in local languages including those without written scripts, symbol systems and other assistive devices as vital for persons with disabilities to meet their information and communication needs … (Geneva Declaration, Global Forum, 2003a)

the magnitude of the issues at stake for persons with disabilities was not generally fully recognized when WSIS Geneva (2003) and WSIS Tunis (2005) took place: the WSIS preparatory process thus played an important role as a forum and catalyst for civil society, industry and governments to define and promote those issues. The WSIS Declarations and Action should be credited for advancing the digital accessibility agenda for persons with disabilities ...

WSIS +10 Review & Strategic Directions for Building Inclusive Knowledge Societies (Feb, 2013)

Actions outlined in the WSIS Geneva and WSIS Tunis agenda were the first global acknowledgement by United Nations Member States of the need to ensure that persons with disabilities can access ICTs in order to fully participate in society, have complete access to knowledge and services based on digital technologies, whether education, employment, e-government or leisure.WSIS +10 Review & Strategic Directions for Building Inclusive Knowledge Societies (Feb, 2013)

3. Communication Rights, the Internet and Disability

The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than the right to information . . . This is the right of men to communicate. (Jean D’Arcy, 1969)

In developing what might be called a new era of social rights, we suggest all the implications of the right to communicate be further explored (MacBride Report, 1980, p. 265)

We need therefore, much like the green movement and the peace movement, a communication movement … Existing social movements are often already working on issues that touch upon the right to communicate, although they are not yet perceived as “right to communicate” issues. (Cess Hamelink, 1994, p. 315)

We therefore think of the “right to communicate” as a conceptual and normative proposal that emerged in a specific historic moment, and has since contributed to stimulating and shaping social mobilizations. However, we refer to “communication rights” as a more inclusive framework, capable of bringing together a diversified reality of actors, frames and claims … (Claudia Padovani & Andrew Calabrese, 2014, p. 5)

… freedom of expression, even where fully protected to the highest standards, is simply incapable, in the context of today’s media and communications structures, of guaranteeing that everyone’s voice can be heard in society. (Sean Ó Siochrú, 2010, p. 5)

… raising the question of how speech that no one listens to can be useful. From this, an additional new idea emerged: there should be a “right to be heard” in the sense of there being a human entitlement to be taken seriously, as well as having one’s views listened to. (Hamelink, 2014, p. 23).

new modes of listening unfolding from the socio-technical practices of users with disabilities … Can we indeed contemplate the prospect of any person following suit to adopt new listening practices – those who occupy the unmarked ‘non-disabled’ (normal) position becoming listeners to media user producers marked as ‘disabled’? (Goggin, ‘Disability & The Ethics of Listening’, 2009)

If indeed all the world's people should be assisted in participating in the public and private conversations that affect their lives, the international community will have to secure the conditions under which such processes can take place. Conversational communication among individuals and groups — whether in public and/or in private … needs confidentiality, space, and time, and requires learning the “art of the conversation”. It also calls for resources for multilingual conversations and for the inclusion of disabled speakers. (Hamelink, 2003)

The social model of disability is visible as a dominant frame of reference in current legislation and policy initiatives at both the Canadian and the European context. Accessibility of modern information and communication technology is firmly framed in a citizenship discourse and increasingly approached from a rights-based perspective. (Hoffman & Dakroury, 2013)

“Communication” includes languages, display of text, Braille, tactile communication, large print, accessible multimedia as well as written, audio, plain-language, human-reader and augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication, including accessible information and communication technology. (Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UN, 2006, Article 2)

“Language” includes spoken and signed languages and other forms of non spoken languages; …“Universal design” means the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. “Universal design” shall not exclude assistive devices for particular groups of persons with disabilities where this is needed. (CRPD, UN, 2006, Article 2)

‘States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise the right to freedom of expression and opinion, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas on an equal basis with others and through all forms of communication of their choice… (CRPD, UN, 2006, Article 2)

a. Providing information intended for the general public to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner and without additional cost;b. Accepting and facilitating the use of sign languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disabilities in official interactions …d. Encouraging the mass media, including providers of information through the Internet, to make their services accessible to persons with disabilities; (CRPD, UN, 2006, Article 2)

4. What happened to WSIS +10? … nine years later [from WSIS], the subject of this review turned out to be more controversial than all the stakeholders involved in global communication governance could have expected: The UN and its member states have yet to reach any consensus on the exact modalities of the review and the way in which new WSIS objectives should be elaborated. (Julia Pohle, 2014, Mapping the WSIS+10 Review Process, p. 2)

many participants from civil society claim that the uncertainty about modalities and possible events still to come makes it difficult to engage meaningfully in the existing review activities [of WSIS +10 (Pohle, 2014, p. 2)

5. conclusion

• “[m]obilizations for communication rights and media justice did not end with the WSIS” (Milan & Padovani, 2014, p. 48).

• UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disability is now key site for disability & Internet/communication rights

• Despite great potential for innovation – e.g. social, mobile, locative, wearable, ambient etc media – disability is not acknowledged and fairly designed for in the making of new Internet-based technologies, e.g. Google Glass

Exchange Telstra blog, 1 May 2014

disability in high-tech imaginaries & materialities

• Cf.Theories of the Mobile Internet: Materialities and Imaginaries, cf. by Jan Hadlaw, Andrew Herman, and Thom Swiss (Routledge, 2015)

• Google Glass (= wearables) & Google Driverless Cars (= cars & mobiles 3.0) can be seen as important next stages in imagining non-screen-based, locative media (expanding notions of media)

• Tech companies high profile embrace of disability & partnering with tech developers to explore disability/accessibility potential is laudable

• however, there is little recognition of the power relations, exclusion & everyday use of people with disability when it comes to disability technology

• disability is included in some Internet rights efforts, such as The Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet, developed by the Internet Rights & Principles Coalition (IRPC, 2014).

• but neither term “disability” or its analogues are mentioned in the important Delhi Declaration, despite a provision spelling out the right to access and contribute to the development of the Internet, including its content, particularly of marginalised groups, minorities and indigenous peoples” (article 14, Internet and Rights, The Delhi Declaration, JustNet, 2014).

Forgetting disability as Internet communication rights?

referencesd'Arcy, Jean. (1969). Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Right to Communicate. EBU Review, 118, 14-18.Hamelink, C. J. (2014). Communication rights and the history of ideas. In C. Padovani and A. Calabrese (Eds.), Communication rights and social justice: Historical accounts of transnational mobilizations (pp. 17-28). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Hamelink, C. (2004). Toward a human right to communicate? Canadian Journal of Communication, 29, 2. Retrieved from http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1436/1548.Hoffman, J., & Dakroury, A. (2013). Disability rights between legal discourses and policy narratives: An analysis of the European and Canadian frameworks. Disability Studies Quarterly, 33, 3, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1778/3260.Milan, S., & Padovani, C. (2014). Communication rights and media justice between political and discursive opportunities: An historical perspective. In C. Padovani & A. Calabrese, (Eds.), Communication rights and social justice: Historical accounts of transnational mobilizations (pp. 29-54). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Ó Siochrú, S. (2010). Implementing communication rights. In M. Raboy & J. Shtern (Eds.), Media divides: Communication rights and the right to communicate in Canada ((pp. 41-59). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press.Padovani, C., & Calabrese, A. (Eds.). (2014). Communication rights and social justice: Historical accounts of transnational mobilizations. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacmillanPohle, J. (2014). Mapping the WSIS +10 Review process, http://www.globalmediapolicy.net/Raboy, M. (2004). The World Summit on the Information Society and its legacy for global governance. Gazette, 66, 3-4, 225-232

Further reading

Gerard Goggin & Christopher Newell, Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Disability in New Media (2003)Goggin, Gerard (2009)'Disability and the ethics of listening',Continuum, 23:4,489-502Katie Ellis and Gerard Goggin. ‘Disability, Locative Media, and Complex Ubiquity.’ In Ubiquitous Computing, Complexity and Culture, edited by Ulrik Ekman et al (Routledge, 2015)

Katie Ellis, Gerard Goggin & Beth Haller eds., Routledge Companion to Disability and Media, 2016Katie Ellis & Gerard Goggin, Disability and the Media (Palgrave, 2015)