Part of what makes the web useful is the ability to immediately disseminate information. No longer do Deaf people have to wait for the conference to be over to find out what has been discussed, and about new developments. Of course, NAD will publish news about the conference in their newsletter/magazine, but members and other interested parties don’t have to wait for that to come out. They can go to the website.
Plus, NADmag (the name of their publication) can’t sign to you. A vlog can sign to you.
The most recent posting is an interview with Bernard Bragg, world renowed Deaf actor and storyteller. For the same interview to be published in NADmag, the staff would have to translate ASL into English text, which carries the possibility of altering Bragg’s intent behind his responses. One interesting thing to note is that the interview does not have a transcript forthcoming, while interviews with Phyllis Frelich and Bobbie Beth Scoggins both have messages indicating a “transcript to come.”
I’m not particularly troubled because these sort of people will always find something to make fun of; if not hearing, then it’d be weight, religion, ethnicity, music tastes, spelling ability, and so on.
Goggin and Newell wrote a comprehensive look at Disability and how it applies to the Digital world (by digital, they include any and all information sharing technology that transmit information through ones and zeroes over phone lines and other broadband means). This is a wide umbrella that includes television, the Internet, and mobile telephony.
While not directly addressing the issue of blogging (in part because it was still new at the time of publication), the book provides plenty of ideas that can be connected to the Deaf World and blogging.
Here we go. This is my first post. This is the first time I’ve used WordPress, although I have used LiveJournal as a blog host for several years. Now I’m sharing space on my friend’s blog server, lpoweronl, so thanks to him for that.
So why am I doing this? Well, I’m working on my Master’s degree in English at the University of Texas. An old writer’s adage is to “write what you know.” I know life as a Deaf person, and I know the Internet has been an incredible accessibility tool for me as a Deaf person. For other Deaf people too as well. The Internet also has changed life for Hearing people as well. Blogging and wikis and other forms of collaborative information presentation have changed the way academics look at the way the English language is being used. Of course, other languages are being used too–not just English. The Internet isn’t limited to North America. People are able to express themselves in their native languages all over the web. And now the World Wide Web has evolved to include other ways of expressing language rather than text lining the monitor.
People are able to create audio podcasts to present their thoughts or even artwork (in terms of music and poetry). And technology and bandwidth improved, leading people to videocasts, small video presentations broadcast on the internet. The limits were stretched further now that news and performances and other material are now posted for all to view on the web. Let’s not forget language, as I mentioned just a bit ago.
