The Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (GADIM) and Curtin University in
Perth, Australia, are hosting a conference 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. April 19-20, 2018 at
Curtin University on Disability, Media, and Human
Rights: Policy, Practice, Performance. The
conference is free and open to all.
The conference is
informed by Article 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Personswith Disabilities, which affirms that the global
disability community’s access to the media is a human right, as well as the way
public attitudes towards people with disability are shaped. However, for people
with disability, access to the media can be fraught with technological
road-blocks, is punctuated by a lack of functional and reflexive
representations, and perpetuates clichés about the creativity and consciousness
of people with disability.
This conference is an
investigation of three nodes of intersection between disability and the media:
Policy: Human rights,
advocacy and access regarding media.
Practice: Making media as
a person with a disability. Making media for people with disabilities.
Performance: Representations
of disability in the media.
Access to media is a
human right, and the conference explores how government, policy makers and
advocacy groups can ensure equitable and just access for people with disability
to the media landscape in all its avenues.
Media makers with a
disability and those who may make media with a disability consciousness will
present at the conference on topics including: inclusive advertising, blogging,
YouTube activism, community media, and gaming. DADAA digital arts will present
a session about its community engagement focus on arts and disability.
Speakers at the conference will include:
Beth Haller, Co-founder, Global
Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (GADIM) and author of Representing
Disability in an Ableist World
A film screening of the
documentary “Defiant Lives,” which tells the story of the rise and fight of the disability rights
movement in the United States, Britain and Australia, will be at 3 p.m. Friday
April 20, followed by a panel discussion.
Although the conference is free, please register via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/disability-media-and-human-rights-policy-practice-performance-tickets-44626681606
Although the conference is free, please register via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/disability-media-and-human-rights-policy-practice-performance-tickets-44626681606
Description of image at top of page: A poster that says "Disability Rights = Civil Rights" is held by a wheelchair user in a crowd. Only the sign and the legs of people in the crowd are visible. Note: The image is used under a Creative Commons
License: Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0
Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0). The image titled 'Disability
Rights = Civil Rights' is available from the Flickr page of The Leadership Conference on Civil
and Human Rights.