This is part of the ARNOVA panel on social media and social networking led by Dr. Tom Bryer

1. ARNOVA  November19, 2010
Social Media and Citizens with Disabilities
John C. Bricout
1

2. Overview
• Opportunities for activism in the online
and offline civic spheres
• Risk profile of social media for
undermining civic activism
• Activism-positive future scenarios
2

3. Opportunities
• Average Facebook user connected to 80 community
pages, groups or events
• 150M Facebook users access mobile devices/month
• Demographics
– Facebook 55% female, 12% 50+, 53% college+
– LinkedIn 48% female, 32% 50+, 75% college+
• User Base
– Facebook: +/- 320M Users; w/620M groups
– LinkedIn: +/- 75M Users; w/625K groups
(Baker, Bricout, Coughlan, Pater, 2010)
3

4. Opportunities
Facebook & LinkedIn Disability-focused Groups
(2010 Study by Baker, et al., 2010)
• Social media platform: Facebook & LinkedIn
(for comparison) chosen based on user
base/activity
• Search criteria: employment, aging, and
disabled-focused online communities
(groups)
• keywords + >5 members
• English-language groups
4

5. 5
LinkedIn Facebook
Total hits (groups) 1458 3449
Total hits (valid groups) 343 190
Total hits (invalid) 1115 3259
% false hits 75.98% 91.79%

6. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Advocacy Education Networking Outreach Services
Disability-Focused GroupsNumberofGroups
6

7. 60%
5%
16%
7%
9%
3%
Disability Group Breakdown
Community / Participation
Employment
Healthcare / Wellness /
Lifestyle
Politics / Government / Civic
Engagement
Professional / Business
Technology
7

8. 8
65%5%
17%
8%
4% 1%
Facebook

9. 9
52%
6%
14%
7%
16%
5%
LinkedIn

10. Opportunities
• Social media build community
• Community is the foundation for collective
action
• Social media also engage members in
discussions of social goods, including
health, employment, governance and
indeed runs the gambit of participation in
civil society
10

11. Opportunities
• People with disabilities resemble other
social media users in their interests
• People with disabilities do not resemble
other social media users in their means…
• …meaning, an aspiration-achievement
gap, the stuff of activism or inaction
depending upon the risk profiles entailed
by use of social media
11

12. Risk Profile
Discriminatory Participation
• Divide within disability civic activists –
those disenfranchised by the digital divide
whether by technology access barriers,
usability challenges, income, ethnicity or
income
12

13. Risk Profile
Fragmentation of Effort
• Social media partitioning –
compartmentalization analogous to a
division of civic activism labor as
complexity of civic life engenders
specialization
13

14. Risk Profile
Competing Needs
• Distributed activism approach running
afoul of the displacement phenomenon as
collective social media action crowds out
other social media activities important to
civil life causing backlash and undermining
popular support
14

15. Risk Profile
• Future scenarios that transcend – or
resolve – negative tendencies in the
structuring and process of social media
activism, will ensure more effective efforts
at civil or civic action by people with
disabilities and other marginalized groups
15

16. Future Scenarios
Creating Participatory Spaces for Action
• People with disabilities create ‘third spaces’ online using blogs
and social media platforms such as Facebook to engage the
general population in dialogue about what are the proper
targets and methods for civic activism
Developing a Cooperative Marketplace for Action
• Pluralism in the online ‘marketplace’ for civic action generates
an environment in which interdependence, collaboration and
joint goal-setting becomes the norm
16

17. Future Scenarios
Parallel Expectations
• Activism in the domain of social media is recursive in the
offline domain
Matched Drivers
• Social innovations that drive profound changes in civic life are
as likely to emerge from online social networking and social
media as from offline activism
17

18. Conclusion
• Social Media Activism – Social Good Linkages
– Social media influence on civic activism is
proportionate to its impact on setting the value on
social goods
• Social Activism – Disability Citizenship Links
– For people with disabilities the trajectory of social
media activism will be moderated by their
citizenship status
• Social Activism – Community Linkages
– The adaptability of the larger community to new versions
of active civic life in the social media context will
determine the spillover into offline life
18

19. Questions
19