障害の社会化と身体の返還
電子情報市民社会における規格をめぐるポリティクス
2004 年 2004 巻 60 号 p. 76-89,234
詳細
2004 年 2004 巻 60 号 p. 76-89,234
The modern history of movements for people with disabilities is the history of demands for changes in goods, decision-making power and recognition of the value of existence.
Able-bodied people centered principles are based on the idea that "Some people need to be given special consideration and others do not." This is a strong fixed idea even now.
However, once this is changed to the perspective that "Some have already been given consideration but others have not", disability becomes externalized, and the politics of accessibility come to the forefront. Only when we share this latter perspective can we successfully understand the real meaning of "inaccessible".
In order to improve accessibility to electronic information, the disabled people's movement in the USA has achieved remarkable success through lobbying for amendments in the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has set up the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) to deal with accessibility, and is publishing guidelines one after the other: Web Contents Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. This initiative has had considerable influence on the accessibility standards of the American Rehabilitation Act, Section 508.
Japan too has been stimulated by the drive for accessibility in the USA, and is actively developing JIS (Japan Industrial Standard) standards in "Guidelines for the elderly and people with disabilities Information communication equipment and services".
In realizing equality of information access in an electronic information society, the enactment of various standards, protocols, methods and grammars of electronic information technology becomes a key issue.
People involved in movements need to be well informed about high technology electronic information, and need to develop the ability to comment appropriately in relevant situations. Also, specialists of electronic information technology need to commit themselves to these movements, and provide the driving force to promote universal design and accessibility.
