Re-Imagining Accessibility
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
Re-imagining accessibility through the transformations of culture -- particularly the transformative promise of accessible technology for people with disabilities -- is the work of the Fair Use Lab. What does Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster have to do with accessibility? Read more: Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]
Remix: Danger Mouse
![Promotional artwork for "The Grey Album" by Justin Hampton. This was not used for the actual cover, but appeared on the Danger Mouse website in 2004. [Source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200.jpg "danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200")
Will DJ Danger Mouse become the Che Guevara of digital sampling? Consider the case for fair use made by The Grey Album.Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.Disability As Praxis
I am a parent, homeowner, knowledge worker, and person with disabilities. Oppression is not my true word, but praxis is. In Paulo Freire’s transformative work, I find an affirmation deeper than ideology or political activism -- an affirmation of the dynamic role of disability in culture. I believe the daily praxis of making adaptations and negotiating accommodations represents a significant form of cultural production. Read Disability As Praxis.ADA 20th Anniversary
![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
On its 20th anniversary, pundits will debate what the Americans with Disabilities Act has accomplished. I still believe what I said in a TV interview after the ADA signing ceremony in 1990. “The ADA will not end disability discrimination overnight. But in a nation governed by the rule of law, getting it in writing is the place to start.” So what is the ADA's legacy? A Generation of Problem-Solvers.
a blind flaneur
Tag Archives: media studies
What Is The Public sphere?
I’ve been musing about 40 years of experience with two careers that necessarily intertwine and overlap. The first is my career as a media professional. The second is my career as a person with a disability. You could think of one as the day job and the other as my second gig, but the experiences cannot be separated into such neatly distinct categories. If anything unifies my work in both areas, it is the concept of public sphere. Here is how Wikipedia currently defines it. Continue reading
Posted in public sphere
Tagged accessibility, disability, media literacy, media studies
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Who Will Write The History of Accessible Technology?
I’d like to see an extension of the Poynter Timeline documenting the parallel development of computer-based information accessibility. Here are several of my milestones: 1976: The first time I heard about CCTV reading systems for visually impaired people. It wasn’t … Continue reading
Posted in accessibility, media studies
Tagged accessibility, journalism, media studies, technology
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Steal This Footage – Howard Rheingold – Shifts in Technology and Power
Steal This Footage – Howard Rheingold – Shifts in Technology and Power: Rheingold recounts how the development of communication technology has removed the power top transmit messages from a tiny elite, and had been a force for democratization. Following Benkler’s … Continue reading
Posted in Creative Commons
Tagged Howard Rheingold, media studies, participatory culture, video
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Accessible Innis 2.0: The Bias of Communication
[Editor's Note: Harold A. Innis presented “The Bias of Communication” as a talk at the University of Michigan on April 18, 1949. The essay was gathered in a 1951 collection of his works also titled The Bias of Communication, published … Continue reading
Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab
My proposal for MiT6. True to form, I met the deadline at the last minute: A blind reader who constructs an accessible text of Harold Innis’ “The Bias of Communication” will find in it some powerful ideas that suggest why … Continue reading