2007 PhD Thesis Final Revised.pdf - Curtin University

Internet at the same or greater rate as the able-bodied population. In what is deemed
to be an enlightened rights-based society, most people, both able-bodied and disabled
alike, are willing to accept that the treatment of people with disabilities has improved
significantly in recent decades. Yet despite these improvements, difficulties remain.
People who are blind or vision impaired continue to face significant barriers in
relation to poverty, unemployment and a lack of educational opportunities. As
society continues to become more reliant on information technology, there is a
dangerous probability that a key disability group will find it increasingly difficult to
operate equitably in society. Information technology’s promises may give way to a
compounding of existing difficulties. This ‘disability divide’, a term I use in this
thesis, describes the gap between the able-bodied population and people with
disabilities in gaining access to computing and Internet-related technologies.
Although the issue of the disability divide revolves around the importance of
access to computing and Internet-related products and services, it is not based on
information technology alone. As Barton (1996, p14) states, modern disability is, in
itself, “…an exploration of issues of power, social justice, citizenship and human
rights.” The perception of disability in the community, along with the provision of
resources, corporate motivations and government policies, all contribute to the ways
in which people who are blind and vision impaired might gain access to computing
technologies. Given that a rights-based society is meant to effectively support people
with disabilities, the purpose of this study is to ask if society’s treatment of people
with disabilities is effective in addressing the disability divide, and which elements
can be improved to significantly reduce the impact of the disability divide.
Essentially, this thesis investigates how these social and technological factors
entwine to create the disability divide and how such factors impact on people with
vision disabilities.
Research questions
The research questions for this study are as follows:
! How do people with vision disabilities perceive themselves and society, and
how does this affect access to computing and Internet-related technologies?
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