Most of the posts about deafness, voice and Second Life are over at our project blog – If interested, follow these links:
http://learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/category/accessibility-deafness-virtual-worlds/
http://learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/9a-deaf-in-second-life-paper/
Does the video stuff at iTunes have captions? I’m not really interested in making stuff that I could not watch myself. Well, I could watch it but it’d be pretty dull without subtitles. Anyway. Some stuff on podcasting and accessibility http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=3_10_13_3 There is probably more there at the JISC website – they also have an accessibility SIG. Presumably captions/lack of captions (ie subtitles) also has implications for people studying in a second language …? The thing might be to play around with voice to text software and combine (cut and paste? is that possible) with something like http://subtitle-horse.org/. That’d be better than a separate transcript I think, if the process could be made really simple…
Meanwhile – some randomly assembled links to accessibility and podcast things (there’s lots and lots out there…)
http://www.gcast.com/u/kingettblue/main?nr=1&&s=66908556
http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/12/podcast_accessi.html
http://www.stonedeafpilots.com/?p=6
http://www.irishdeafkids.ie/2009/transcribepod-podcasts-accessible/
http://seanzdenek.com/?page_id=23
The 5th Annual Games for Health Conference 2009 (Boston, USA), June 11-12 has a pre-conference track on Accessibility and Virtual Worlds (it includes games and accessibility presentations). Programme at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p9ekyWGoKP7oJbqar0v4zAg
Media Representations of Disababled People, an online resourse here at http://www.disabilityplanet.co.uk/index.html (from L.Wood, 2006). Featuring reports, overviews, links, biblography…
Um. So, I hope to keep going with my BSL classes and at some point in the future, I will know what this means.
Meanwhile – it looks interesting! ‘Deaf people, BSL and virtual worlds’ – from you tube.
http://subtitle-horse.org/
Use this to add subtitles to your movies.
Abstract for ‘A seminar on 3D Virtual World and Social Learning’ organised by: CS Ang, David White, Steven Warburton, P Edirisingha, Panayiotis Zaphiris. Funder: EMERGE JISC. City University. March 17th 2009.
Second Life: Voice, Deafness and Difference
Diane Carr
The proposed presentation involves a work in progress – a journal article on the topic of identity, perceptions of disability, experiences of deafness, and Second Life. Virtual worlds raise questions about access and usability. Additionally, virtual worlds offer researchers an opportunity to examine the ways in which social aspects of ‘disability’ (deafness, in this instance) manifest in online communities.
Drawing on Deaf Studies, Disability Studies, Feminist philosophy and Cultural Studies literature, the author will explore the discursive construction of deafness and difference in Second Life, based on participation, observation and interviews with Second Life residents who identify as deaf/Deaf or hearing impaired in their first or everyday lives. By these means issues of identity and subjectivity in virtual worlds will be explored, in relation to questions of agency, discourse and power.
The first issue of the journal Popular Narrative Media is titled ‘Autism, Narrative and Textuality’ – the contents are listed here.
http://popularnarrative.lupjournals.org/articles.aspx?issueid=275
See also Stuart Murray’s book Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (thanks for the links David).
Present Difference: The Cultural Production of Disability
Manchester Metropolitan University in Conjunction with BBC Northwest and the Cultural Disability Studies Research Network
Wednesday 6th Friday 8th January 2010
This conference seeks to address the contemporary cultural production of disability within and across local and global contexts. Its focus is upon representation both in the sense of the production and circulation of particular narratives, ideas and images of disability and non-disability, and in the sense of the participation of disabled cultural practitioners in the production of culture.
We invite proposals from all stakeholders in the mass mediated production of disability across a variety of themes and from a diversity of perspectives within this disparate field of enquiry.
Submissions are invited from both disabled and non-disabled media producers and policy makers, creative practitioners, disability activists and academics.
Suggested themes include but are not limited to:
policy and practice, television, film, radio, literature, life writing, journalism, comedy, advertising, new media, social networking, theatre, art, popular music, animation, gaming and marketing and publicity in the charity and voluntary sectors.
Topics to include (but are not limited to):
• How do different mediums construct the relationship between disability and non-disability, human variation and human difference?
• In what ways do and have policy makers responded to the call for inclusive practices and representations of human variation?
• What is the relationship between genre and the discursive relations of dis/ability?
• What is the role of the audience in the recognition and construction of dis/ability?
The conference aims to be as varied and inclusive as possible so suggested formats include but are not limited to: Roundtables, Forums, Debates, Panels, Posters, Creative Pieces, DVDs, Websites and Media and Art projects in progress. Sessions will be timetabled for 1hr 30 mins.
Abstracts (max 250 words) and biographical notes (max 150 words) for individual and/or group papers, panels or alternative formats to be sent by Friday 10th April 2009 to presentdifference@yahoo.co.uk.
Enquiries to: Dr Lucy Burke, Manchester Metropolitan University, l.burke@mmu.ac.uk If you are interested in attending the conference, please contact l.burke@mmu.ac.uk with your contact details and email address
Here’s a link to the Second Life, deafness and accessibility posts from our project Learning from Online Worlds; Teaching in Second Life.
http://learningfromsocialworlds.wordpress.com/category/accessibility-deafness-virtual-worlds/
