Restricted Access

How reconsidering digital media and participatory cultures from the standpoint of disability allows for a full understanding of accessibility. While digital media can offer many opportunities for civic and cultural participation, this technology is not equally easy for everyone to use. Hardware, software, and cultural expectations combine to make some technologies an easier fit for some bodies than for others. A YouTube video without closed captions or a social network site that is incompatible with a screen reader can restrict the access of users who are hard of hearing or visually impaired. Often, people with disabilities require accommodation, assistive technologies, or other forms of aid to make digital media accessible—useable—for them. Restricted Access investigates digital media accessibility—the processes by which media is made usable by people with particular needs—and argues for the necessity of conceptualizing access in a way that will enable greater participation in all forms of mediated culture. Drawing on disability and cultural studies, Elizabeth Ellcessor uses an interrogatory framework based around issues of regulation, use, content, form, and experience to examine contemporary digital media. Through interviews with policy makers and accessibility professionals, popular culture and archival materials, and an ethnographic study of internet use by people with disabilities, Ellcessor reveals the assumptions that undergird contemporary technologies and participatory cultures. Restricted Access makes the crucial point that if digital media open up opportunities for individuals to create and participate, but that technology only facilitates the participation of those who are already privileged, then its progressive potential remains unrealized. Engagingly written with powerful examples, Ellcessor demonstrates the importance of alternate uses, marginalized voices, and invisible innovations in the context of disability identities to push us to rethink digital media accessibility.

How reconsidering digital media and participatory cultures from the standpoint of disability allows for a full understanding of accessibility. While digital media can offer many opportunities for civic and cultural participation, this technology is not equally easy for everyone to use. Hardware, software, and cultural expectations combine to make some technologies an easier fit for some bodies than for others. A YouTube video without closed captions or a social network site that is incompatible with a screen reader can restrict the access of users who are hard of hearing or visually impaired. Often, people with disabilities require accommodation, assistive technologies, or other forms of aid to make digital media accessible—useable—for them. Restricted Access investigates digital media accessibility—the processes by which media is made usable by people with particular needs—and argues for the necessity of conceptualizing access in a way that will enable greater participation in all forms of mediated culture. Drawing on disability and cultural studies, Elizabeth Ellcessor uses an interrogatory framework based around issues of regulation, use, content, form, and experience to examine contemporary digital media. Through interviews with policy makers and accessibility professionals, popular culture and archival materials, and an ethnographic study of internet use by people with disabilities, Ellcessor reveals the assumptions that undergird contemporary technologies and participatory cultures. Restricted Access makes the crucial point that if digital media open up opportunities for individuals to create and participate, but that technology only facilitates the participation of those who are already privileged, then its progressive potential remains unrealized. Engagingly written with powerful examples, Ellcessor demonstrates the importance of alternate uses, marginalized voices, and invisible innovations in the context of disability identities to push us to rethink digital media accessibility.

In this gripping sequel to All Rights Reserved, Speth Jime must risk everything to save the people she loves...or lose them to the corrupt system that's keeping everyone apart. In this gripping sequel to All Rights Reserved, Speth Jime must risk everything to save the people she loves...or lose them to the corrupt system that's keeping everyone apart. On the day she went silent, Speth never meant for anyone to follow her lead – or to start a rebellion of Silents. But after taking down the tyrant Silas Rog and freeing the city from his grasp, everyone is looking to Speth for answers she doesn't have. All she wants is to find her parents, who are shackled to a lifetime of servitude in exchange for a debt they can never repay. But how can Speth leave her friends to fend for themselves when she's the reason their city is in chaos? When the government threatens to restore the WiFi and take back the city, Speth is forced to flee with a ragtag group of friends by her side. Together, they embark on a dangerous journey outside the dome they've lived in their entire lives, in search of a better future. Along the way, Speth will discover the shattering truth about their world...and the role she'll need to play to save it.

In a world where every word and gesture is copyrighted, patented or trademarked, one girl elects to remain silent rather than pay to speak, and her defiant and unexpected silence threatens to unravel the very fabric of society. Speth Jime is anxious to deliver her Last Day speech and celebrate her transition into adulthood. The moment she turns fifteen, Speth must pay for every word she speaks (“Sorry” is a flat ten dollars and a legal admission of guilt), for every nod ($0.99/sec), for every scream ($0.99/sec) and even every gesture of affection. She’s been raised to know the consequences of falling into debt, and can’t begin to imagine the pain of having her eyes shocked for speaking words that she’s unable to afford. But when Speth’s friend Beecher commits suicide rather than work off his family’s crippling debt, she can’t express her shock and dismay without breaking her Last Day contract and sending her family into Collection. Backed into a corner, Speth finds a loophole: rather than read her speech—rather than say anything at all—she closes her mouth and vows never to speak again. Speth’s unexpected defiance of tradition sparks a media frenzy, inspiring others to follow in her footsteps, and threatens to destroy her, her family and the entire city around them.

Tom and his friends are trapped in a quarantine lockdown in this third novel in Tom Swift Inventors’ Academy—perfect for fans of The Hardy Boys or Alex Rider. Tom has always tried to play down his pseudo celebrity status at the academy. So, the last thing he wants is for a reporter’s son to follow him around for an article on the school. When this extends to one of the biggest field trips of the year—an overnight lock-in at Swift Enterprises—Tom couldn’t be less pleased. With his new shadow in tow, Tom expects the night to be uneventful at best. But when the facility suddenly goes into quarantine mode, the overnight lock-in turns into a building-wide lockdown. Tom and his friends are left trapped in their respective rooms, with no way to communicate the outside world. As they make their way through the facility using methods that are a little more…creative…than normal, Tom and his friends start realizing that there is more to this quarantine than meets the eye. But with no way to call for help, it’s up to them to not only escape, but also find out what—or who—is behind the lockdown.

The annual is a venue of publication for sociological studies of Chinese societies and the Chinese all over the world. The main focus is on social transformations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the mainland, Singapore and Chinese overseas.