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Disability Activism on Social Media: Sociotechnical Challenges in the Pursuit of Visibility
Conference proceeding   Open access

Disability Activism on Social Media: Sociotechnical Challenges in the Pursuit of Visibility

Shruti Sannon, Jordyn Young, Erica Shusas and Andrea Forte
Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp 1-15
19 Apr 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581333
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581333View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Human-centered computing -- Accessibility Human-centered computing -- Collaborative and social computing -- Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing Social and professional topics -- User characteristics -- People with disabilities
Activism efforts have played a central role in advancing the rights of disabled people in the United States. Social media offers new opportunities for people with disabilities to engage in activism while bypassing the accessibility issues involved in traditional activism. At the same time, disabled people face various forms of social and technical exclusion that may also complicate their use of social media for disability activism. To understand how disabled activists advocate for social change online, we interviewed 20 disabled content creators about their goals, strategies, and challenges around posting activism content on social media. We find that visibility is essential for successful online activism, but that the pursuit of visibility requires disabled content creators to navigate additional challenges including social stigma, algorithmic suppression, accessibility issues, and a heightened risk of harassment. We identify three main types of disability-related harassment faced by disabled activists, along with six ways in which they respond to such harassment. We examine the sociotechnical nature of the strategies disabled activists use to gain visibility, and identify key trade-offs involved in mitigating harassment while engaging in activism on social media.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Computer Science, Information Systems
Computer Science, Theory & Methods
Robotics
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