While conventional wisdom holds that new media technologies have enabled new forms of creative, political, and interpersonal communication, these same technologies may exclude people with disabilities and others. As one door opens, another may shut.

Presenting research from her new book, Restricted Access: Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation (NYU 2016), Ellcessor argues that understanding new media technologies requires us to understand perspectives from the margins. Policies, industries, cultural norms, and granular interactions have created a context in which Americans with disabilities are much less likely to be users (let alone creators) of networked technologies and digital media. This, ultimately, is a problem of access.

This talk will problematize the concept of "access," illustrating its many connotations in various policy, academic, and grassroots contexts. Ellcessor ultimately theorizes access as an intersectional phenomenon that is repeatedly and variably produced. Yet, if access cannot be taken for granted, how do we study it? How do we know who "has" access? How to we "give" access to those who may not have it? Using cultural and disability studies frameworks, Ellcessor proposes research questions that prioritize the conditions surrounding experiences of access. She then uses these tools to explore digital media accessibility for Americans with disabilities; technologies have both empowered and excluded these users, and disabled users have, in turn, produced interventions that create access and challenge received wisdom about the value, uses, and role of new media in everyday life.

Elizabeth Ellcessor is an Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University – Bloomington. Her research focuses on digital media, disability, media access, and performances of online identity.