The article “Does That Face-'Book' Come in Braille: Social Networking Sites and Disability” addresses the problem that there is an inaccessibility for people of disability in the popular social networking site, such as Facebook.The author not only traces back to the inception of Facebook, but also the origin of using internet as a place of social activities. He points out that the social networking sites are very useful and helpful for youth with learning impairment. Since people are more willing to share some personal information on the internet rather than in face-to-face conversation. Regarding to this point, I think even though the inaccessibility for people of disability exists as the author describes in the article, there are at least one part of disable people( youth with learning impairment ) who can benefit from the internet in the beginning period of the social networking sites. While the author firstly states the problem that people with disability have little access to social networking sites like Facebook, he also uses the changes made from Facebook to illustrate that this kind of problem is being relieved by many efforts from society. The efforts and changes make me feel that the story presented in this article are more complete than the former three, since the solutions to the problem is shown in the article.
Furthermore, I really have something to say about one point the author proposes. He states that “disability exists in society and is a negative interpretation of impairment that empowers dominant groups and institutions”. Besides the inaccessibility of social networking sites for people with disability, I also want to talk about some negative social attitudes, misperceptions and misinformation of people with disability. People often view those of disabilities as the objects of pity, thus holding a negative interpretation of their impairment. In media, people of disability are usually depicted as having the same attributes and characteristics no matter what the disability may be. Therefore, they are usually stereotyped in many social media. For example, in many movies, the person of disability usually sit on a wheelchair, since they are an iconic sign of disability. The wheelchair allows the character to be obviously disabled, whilst still looking ‘normal’, and does not therefore present any major challenges for audience identification.However, this common representation fails to reflect the full range of disabilities and also forms a stereotype. Therefore, as the author points out the need to offer more access to people of disability, we should also prevent some misinterpretation and misperceptions of people with disabilities.
Furthermore, I really have something to say about one point the author proposes. He states that “disability exists in society and is a negative interpretation of impairment that empowers dominant groups and institutions”. Besides the inaccessibility of social networking sites for people with disability, I also want to talk about some negative social attitudes, misperceptions and misinformation of people with disability. People often view those of disabilities as the objects of pity, thus holding a negative interpretation of their impairment. In media, people of disability are usually depicted as having the same attributes and characteristics no matter what the disability may be. Therefore, they are usually stereotyped in many social media. For example, in many movies, the person of disability usually sit on a wheelchair, since they are an iconic sign of disability. The wheelchair allows the character to be obviously disabled, whilst still looking ‘normal’, and does not therefore present any major challenges for audience identification.However, this common representation fails to reflect the full range of disabilities and also forms a stereotype. Therefore, as the author points out the need to offer more access to people of disability, we should also prevent some misinterpretation and misperceptions of people with disabilities.