Digital Youth with Disabilities

117 Pages·2014·1.47 MB·English

by  Meryl Alper

Digital Youth with Disabilities
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on
Digital Media and Learning
A complete series list can be found at the back of the book.
Digital Youth with Disabilities
Meryl Alper
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alper, Meryl.
Digital youth with disabilities / Meryl Alper.
page cm. — (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
reports on digital media and learning)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-262-52715-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Mass media and youth—United States. 2. Digital media—Social
aspects—United States. 3. Youth with disabilities—United States.
4. Technology and youth—United States. I. Title.
HQ799.2.M352U647 2015
305.9′08083—dc23
2014017230

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Series Foreword vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 1
Defining Youth with Disabilities 4
Locating Disability among Digital Youth 8
The Role of Families 10
Summary 13
2 The Trouble with Screen Time 17
Screen Time: A Brief History 19
Arguments against Screen Time 22
Ableism and the Medicalization of Screen Time 29
Summary 36
3 Youth Sociality through and around Media 39
Theoretical Approaches 40
Parents, Caregivers, and Siblings as Social Partners 43
Peers, Social Media, and Social Networking Sites 47
Summary 49
4 Evaluating Children’s Media 51
Differences across Disabilities 52
How Appropriate Is Age Appropriate? 56
Misrepresenting Disability in Children’s Media 57
Inaccessible by Design 58
Summary 61
5 Conclusion 63
Areas for Future Research and Development 63
Summary 66
Appendix: Additional Resources on Digital Media and Youth with
Disabilities 69
Notes 71
References 75
Series Foreword
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports
on Digital Media and Learning, published by the MIT Press in
collaboration with the Monterey Institute for Technology and
Education (MITE), present findings from current research on
how young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic
life. The reports result from research projects funded by the
MacArthur Foundation as part of its fifty million dollar initiative
in digital media and learning. They are published openly online
(as well as in print) in order to support broad dissemination and
stimulate further research in the field.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Ellen Seiter, my dissertation committee
member and editor of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning series, for
her guidance and advice on this project. I also appreciate the
continued support of the Annenberg School for Communication
and Journalism at the University of Southern California, espe-
cially my primary doctoral studies adviser, Henry Jenkins. I am
extremely grateful for the insights shared with me by the youth
and adults with disabilities who I have met over the course of
my research as well as their families, friends, teachers, and sup-
porters. In addition, I would like to thank the following individ-
uals for being invaluable thought partners as I worked through
the ideas in this report: Mike Ananny, François Bar, Elizabeth
Ellcessor, Beth Haller, Sara Hendren, Paul Lichterman, Melissa
Morgenlander, Mara Mills, and Rachel Proffitt. Lastly, I wish to
thank Susan Buckley at the MIT Press and the anonymous out-
side readers for their feedback on the manuscript.