No abstract

Protests are important social forms of activism, but can be inaccessible to people with disabilities. Online activism, like the 2017 Disability March, has provided alternative venues for involvement in accessible protesting and social movements. In this study, we use identity theory as a lens to understand why and how disabled activists engaged in an online movement, and its impact on their self-concepts. We interviewed 18 disabled activists about their experiences with online protesting during the Disability March. Respondents' identities (as both disabled individuals and as activists) led them to organize or join the March, evolved alongside the group's actions, and were reprioritized or strained as a result of their involvement. Our findings describe the values and limitations of this activism to our respondents, highlight the tensions they perceived about their activist identities, and present opportunities to support further accessibility and identity changes by integrating technology into their activist experiences.

At historic open-air museums, many of the “objects” under investigation are buildings and landscapes that could tell multiple, overlapping narratives: i.e., they were built/manipulated over the course of years by different peoples and groups who used them for varying purposes. In this article, we address this challenge by proposing the use of interactive maps to orient visitors in time, space, and both time and space. We conducted a series of collaborative-design workshops to elicit recommendations. From the analysis of the transcripts, we identified four design elements and two functionalities that could be used for these purposes. We then conducted a study at an open-air museum to compare the extent to which these design elements and functionalities (and a prototype that integrates them) allow visitors to orient themselves in time and space, and to notice change over time.

Technology-mediated public activism has grown popular in recent years with the high uptake of social media. Facebook and Twitter have become venues for activists to participate in online activism, or organize offline activism events. However, due to accessibility barriers in physical environments and accessibility issues in social media, people with disabilities continue to face challenges when they engage with such social movements. We interviewed 22 disabled activists about how they used technology to mediate civic engagement and barriers they faced. We present preliminary findings from these interviews and describe a potential solution named ActVirtual, a mobile platform for accessible activism. Our future work will include implementing and testing ActVirtual with users to make online and offline activism more accessible.