Web Accessibility: A Digital Divide for the Disabled?

David published a chapter in the book, Social Inclusion: Societal & Organizational Implications for Information Systems, in 2006, which was the proceedings of the IFIP8.2 conference of that year, entitled: ‘Web Accessibility: A Digital Divide for the Disabled?’

Abstract: The focus of this paper is web accessibility for disabled people. Much of the web remains inaccessible or difficult to access by people across a spectrum of disabilities and this may have serious implications for the potential use of the web for increasing social inclusion. The topic of disabled web access is introduced through a consideration of four discourses – digital divide, social construction of disability, legal discourse and the web accessibility discourse. The lack of dialogue between these permits a passive liberal approach towards disability discrimination to prevail and this political position has become ‘inscribed’ in widely used automatic software tools resulting in a reinforcement of the view that web site accessibility approval may, in many cases, be deemed an ‘empty shell’.

Ref:

Adam, A & Kreps, D (2006) ‘Web Accessibility: A Digital Divide for the Disabled?’ Transactions of IFIP 8.2, Social Inclusion: Societal & Organizational Implications for Information Systems, Volume 208 Springer. DOI: 10.1007/0-387-34588-4_15