What is the state of digital inclusion for people with disabilities? What is the importance of digital inclusion for addressing wider issues of social inclusion and exclusion, and inequality faced in relation to disability? How can research better interact with and feed into policy and practice that seeks to advance social justice agenda, and ensure that disability is at the heart of digital equality as it is imagined and enacted?
To explore these questions, this paper looks at how disability fares and features in digital inclusion policies and how these are put into practice. The paper uses a theoretical framework drawn from critical disability studies, cultural and media studies, global media policy research, and science and technology studies.
Firstly, I provide a brief introduction to disability, digital technology, inequality, and digital inclusion. I then offer a brief discussion of the achievements, shortcomings, and challenges of digital equality and inclusion policy and practice in relation to disability.
In response to the current situation, I advance the proposition that disability is a highly productive intersectional exemplar for thinking about social inclusion, support, and welfare –– indeed social futures. To the extent that digital technology is increasingly a key facet of contemporary global societies (consider, for instance, the “digital by default” notion often accompanying digital government policies and service delivery) , and that digital inclusion becomes a major stumbling block for social, political, civic, and economic participation, the many dimensions of disability offer important lessons. This includes the importance of considering and debating how the digital is shaped, what forms it takes, in combination with what other tools of citizenship also, and where the limits and downsides of the digital lie when it comes to equality and social inclusion.
Secondly, I use this account to frame and analyse disability, inequality digital inclusion in an especially instructive case –– the city-state of Singapore. Singapore is well-known for its keen espousal of digital technology policies, and especially its many measures to equip its citizens and communities for participation in its unfolding digital society. As I discuss, Singapore aims to be an advanced case of digital inclusion, in which disability and accessibility are increasingly referenced and prominent in measures formulated. After analysing digital inclusion policies in Singapore, I look at how it has been implemented –notably in terms of ‘digital readiness’ frameworks, inventorying, and networks. While Singapore has enacted a raft of important and prescient digital inclusion policies (critical because of its aim to become a ‘smart nation’), in relation to disability and accessibility, there remains a long way to go before digital inclusion and wider social inclusion for people with disabilities is fully realized.
Thirdly, I reflect upon the Singapore case study, in terms of the wider international context, to see how we can reimagine digital equality and inclusion policy.