Mad in America

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 8, affirms that the global disability community’s access to the media is a human right, as well as the way public attitudes towards people with disability are shaped. However, for people with disability, access to the media can be fraught with technological road-blocks, is punctuated by a lack of functional and reflexive representations, and perpetuates clichés about the creativity and consciousness of people with disability.

This conference is an investigation of three nodes of intersection between disability and the media.

• Policy: Human rights, advocacy and access regarding media.
• Practice: Making media as a person with a disability. Making media for people with disabilities.
• Performance: Representations of disability in the media.