Collaborative Research: The Role of People with Disability in the Innovation of Online Technology

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How is the internet changing the ways that Americans think of themselves as individuals and interact as members of communities? While there has been considerable scientific research on this question, there has been far less attention paid to the experiences of people with disabilities. This is unfortunate because the effects of these technologies may be more pronounced for them and therefore easier for us to observe and analyze. This project focuses on the experiences of people with disabilities in on-line, virtual worlds. In these three-dimensional, immersive online spaces, people with disabilities can appear as they choose and do things they may not be able to do in the physical world. The researchers also will study other dimensions of the on-line lives of people with disabilities, including interactions on social network sites, blogs, and e-commerce venues. The research will contribute to improving health care and social support for people with disabilities.Thomas Boellstorff of the University of California, Irvine and Donna Davis of the University of Oregon, Eugene, will collaborate to explore: (a) how people with disabilities use digital media with regard to embodiment and social interaction; (b) how this changes self-understanding as disabled and affects physical-world experiences of disability; (c) what aspects of embodied online social interaction are linked to specific disabilities; (d) the role of digital making and the effect of differing platforms and devices. The research will involve a range of ethnographic methods conducted in online digital media, as well as interviews with a subset of people with disabilities provided with devices like 3D goggles. Virtual world interviews will be conducted with at least 80 individuals, and a smaller subset of intensive, ethnographic interviews will be conducted to address issues of how online embodiment is conceptualized. In addition to offering scholarly contributions to disability studies, science and technology studies, media studies, and cultural anthropology, this project explores the experiences of an underrepresented group, and offer insights into increasingly relevant public debates about the role of digital culture. The project's investigation of the insights of people with disabilities will help us better understand how new online technologies influence the relationship between the human body and technology, how we think about social interaction in light of these massive technological innovations, and how we think about the role of the internet in everyday life.