Scholz, F, Yalcin, B and Priestley, M orcid.org/0000-0002-7292-6115 (2017) Internet access for disabled people: Understanding socio-relational factors in Europe. Cyberpsychology : Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberpspace, 11 (1). article 4. ISSN 1802-7962
Abstract
Access to the Internet has become a sine qua non-of everyday life. It also offers new routes to economic and social inclusion for disabled people. Research on the digital divide shows that social factors affect Internet access but disability status is often overlooked. This paper assesses the extent to which disability makes a difference and how it interacts with other social effects to produce distinctive forms of digital exclusion. The analysis uses survey data from 27 European countries to explore and model, statistically, the interactions between Internet access, disability status, age, gender, education, household financial situation and household composition. Multilevel analysis confirms that socio-demographic factors can explain much variance in outcomes but there is a distinctive disability effect. In particular, the adverse effects of financial constraint, aging and living alone are exacerbated among disabled people. New policies to strengthen e-accessibility, arising from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and from the European Union, are important but cannot ignore those who are still excluded from the online revolution. Disabled people are over-represented in this group. The evidence suggests that both accessible technologies and appropriate supportive relationships are needed to address this.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2007-2017, Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. The articles in Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace are open access articles licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The author of the work thus grants Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace a non-exclusive license and all publishing rights are therefore left to the author without any further restrictions. |
Keywords: | ICT; Internet access; disabled people; digital divide; citizenship rights; Europe; EU; e-accessibility |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Work and Employment Relation Division (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Sociology and Social Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 25 May 2017 12:45 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Masaryk University |
Identification Number: | 10.5817/CP2017-1-4 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:116797 |