Disability, digital technology and communications rights as a legacy of the World Summit of the Information Society

1. 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 @ggoggin
Dept of Media & Communications
University of Sydney

2. • 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)

3. 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

4. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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)

10. 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)

11. … 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)

13. 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)

14. 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)

15. 3. Communication Rights, the Internet
and Disability

16. 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)

17. 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)

18. 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)

19. … 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)

20. … 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)

21. 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)

22. 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)

23. “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)

24. “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)

25. ‘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)

26. 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)

27. 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 theWSIS+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)

28. 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

29. Exchange
Telstra
blog, 1
May 2014

31. 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

33. Forgetting disability as Internet
communication rights?
• 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).

34. references
d'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 Macmillan
Pohle, 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

35. 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, 23:4,489-502
Katie 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, 2016
Katie Ellis & Gerard Goggin, Disability and the Media
(Palgrave, 2015)