I am a professor and discipline lead for the Curtin iSchool in the Humanities at Curtin University. My research and writing focuses on the three overlapping areas of the Internet, eLearning and Disability.
Using social media to advance the social rights of people with disability in China: The Beijing One Plus One Disabled Persons’ Cultural Development Centre
Routledge eBooks, Nov 10, 2016
This book considers the specific and at this stage largely unexplored impacts of our increasing r... more This book considers the specific and at this stage largely unexplored impacts of our increasing reliance on social media for people with disability through a number of international case studies.
Audio description and Australian Television: A position paper
Audio description (AD) – also referred to as video description, video programming or descriptive ... more Audio description (AD) – also referred to as video description, video programming or descriptive video – is a track of narration included between the lines of dialogue which describes important visual elements of a television show, movie or performance. It is an essential feature in order to make television accessible to audiences who are blind or vision impaired. As the human rights of people with disability become more prioritised and expanding technologies allow an individualisation of the experience of television, AD is becoming increasingly available across the world. For example, from its rudimentary beginnings in Spain in the 1940s, to date AD is available through terrestrial broadcast television in the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, France, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Korea, Thailand, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and a number of other European countries. However, it is not available on Australian broadcast television, despite the federally funded agency Screen Australia having created a back catalogue of AD content. Screen Australia is the key funding body for the Australian film industry and according to several policy documents requires funded dramas to create an AD track. While producers may create these tracks, there is no mechanism to broadcast them on television. The Australian government and broadcast industry have stated that they believe it to be too technically complicated and financially prohibitive to offer here. This report outlines an AD position paper based on 5 years of research with Australian audiences with disability conducted by researchers in the Department of Internet Studies and the Critical Disability Research Network at Curtin University Australia. The report focuses in particular on the views of Australians with blindness and vision impairments who have taken part in these projects. The report is divided into three sections. Part 1 considers the broader context of the role of television in facilitating social inclusion, including the idea that television access is a fundamental human right. Part 2 considers the ways AD can be delivered, and begins with a brief history of AD, from its beginnings in the middle part of last century to the modern and innovative formats available today. The Big Access Media (BAM) app is presented as an immediate solution, and we argue the industry, especially the public Audio description position paper • page vii broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), utilise this app to immediately offer AD content to Australians. It will consider how standards, guidelines and legislation have shaped the AD industry worldwide and offer some common guidelines regarding principles, objectivity and voicing. The provision of AD in Australia is also discussed, specifically in relation to a similar accessibility issue – the provision of closed captions. The section concludes by providing case studies on two aspects of Australian media – the two ABC AD trials and the efforts of Screen Australia to increase AD content in this country. While the insights of blind and visually impaired audience members who require AD are featured throughout the report, Part 3 moves on to discuss these observations in more detail. This focuses on feedback from people regarding their access to television which had been carried out in two earlier research projects – this included 13 interview participants with vision impairment and a further 64 who participated in online surveys. Common themes that emerged included: § The importance of the public broadcaster. § Television being a social activity. § The feeling of exclusion – television is considered integral for inclusion. § Issues surrounding cost – the “economics of disability”. § Contradictory approaches to technology – some were willing to try new technology, others preferred older technology and were unwilling to upgrade. § The frustration that Australian content is audio described when exported overseas or released on DVD but is not available on local broadcast television. § Frustration with watching non-AD television content once AD has been experienced. The section concludes by also considering the potential benefits of AD to other audiences, including the elderly, people with intellectual disabilities and people whose first language is not English. The following recommendations are therefore proposed: § AD be made available on Australian free-to-air television either via terrestrial broadcast, catch-up portals or a dedicated app. § Any imported programming with an AD track created for international audiences must be licensed with the AD track for distribution in Australia. Audio description position paper • page viii § Further research is conducted to establish the mainstream benefits of AD and talking electronic programing guides (EPGs). The ways people consume media is constantly changing – if these formats and technologies can be embraced by the mainstream,…
Using smartphones to navigate urban spaces: People with disabilities and the role of mobile technologies in three WA locations
People with disabilities report a number of consistently disabling access issues while moving thr... more People with disabilities report a number of consistently disabling access issues while moving through urban environments. These can result in social isolation and cause people with disability to avoid going to new or hard to get to places, often being late due to public transport issues, getting disoriented, experiencing fatigue, having to ask strangers for help, and needing a support person to accompany them. Mobile devices and accessible applications (apps) are becoming an integral part of navigating urban space for all Australians, including those with disabilities. Mobile phones increasingly characterise our experiences of public spaces, replacing both interpersonal interactions and transforming the way we traverse these spaces. The participants in this research were therefore recruited to determine whether it is possible for people with disabilities to become more adept at navigating urban environments using technological advances like Google Maps and Google Street View, technology which is easily accessible via their smartphones. This report details findings of the research project Using smartphones to navigate urban spaces – People with disabilities and the role of mobile technologies in three WA locations. This 9-month pilot study was carried out to test the feasibility of this type of research before undertaking a larger scale study. It reviewed prior research in this area, tracked how people with disabilities used their smartphones via focus groups, gathered data from one-on-one interviews, and designed and monitored the use of a unique research app (the Urban Spaces app) to discover initial answers to the following key questions ? How are people with disabilities using smartphones to mitigate the effects of their impairments and compensate for inaccessibility in urban spaces? ? Are people with longer term impairments more adept at this navigation? ? Does the use of smartphones improve social inclusion? The research focused specifically on two cohorts – people with vision impairments and wheelchair users – in two distinct Western Australian locations, namely the Perth metropolitan area and in the less urbanised southwest region of Western Australia around the regional city of Bunbury. This report begins with a brief overview of the history and current use of smartphones – by the general population and by people with disabilities. A comprehensive literature review then follows, covering the two main foci of current research in this area – the design of smartphones and their use as assistive technology (AT), and the use of smartphones as a socially empowering device. The report then considers the methodology used in the study. The findings of the pilot report are then outlined. These are divided into three sections. The first details findings from focus groups held in Perth at the disability support centre VisAbility and Curtin University. These groups captured insights from a total of ten people with disabilities living in the Perth metropolitan area – three wheelchair users and seven with a vision impairment. Participants acknowledged that their smartphone was an essential requirement for navigating urban spaces and decreasing social isolation. Key benefits mentioned included: ? GPS built-in functionality – examples include the ability to provide your location to taxis and other transport services and the ability to identify the location of objects and places nearby such as accessible toilets. ? Mapping – specific guidance on going to a particular place. ? Quick web search – use of digital assistants such as Siri to provide an easy hands-free option to perform quick searches and find locations. ? Environment monitoring – identification of specific weather conditions in a localised area. ? Optical character recognition (OCR) and image recognition – identification of documents, signage and landmarks for blind and low vision users. The second details findings from focus groups and interviews with people with disabilities living in the southwest region of Western Australia. Five people participated in this stage of the research – three participants that used wheelchairs, one who was blind and one who was an orientation and mobility specialist with Guide Dogs WA. These participants believed the smartphone was a useful tool and a number of essential smartphone features were noted, including GPS – for example Apple maps – and route finding, voice over and text-to-speech technology, SMS messages, simple phone calls, weather apps or websites, digital assistants such as Siri, in-built voice recognition services and the notetaking function. However, participants determined that these features did not necessarily change how accessible spaces were for them, although they did note the usefulness of apps such as Snap Send Solve which could be used to report on inaccessible spaces. The results section concludes with an assessment of the apps available to people with disabilities that may improve their navigation…
Ellis and Kent: Disability and the Media, 4-Vol. Set
Now, this new four-volume collection from Routledge's acclaimed Critical Concepts in Medi... more Now, this new four-volume collection from Routledge's acclaimed Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies series enables users readily to access and make sense of the essential texts of disability-and-media scholarship
Developing accessible technologies for a changing world: understanding how people with vision impairment use smartphones
Disability & Society, 2021
Abstract Over a six week period, 845 people with low vision or blindness responded to our survey ... more Abstract Over a six week period, 845 people with low vision or blindness responded to our survey regarding how they used their smartphone, contributing to the first ever large-scale research project on the importance of smartphones in the Australian blind community. The results were significant − 79% of people with vision impairment use smartphones. They are part of their everyday lives and used for a broad range of purposes. Furthermore, the broad adoption of this device is a recent phenomenon – there has been a 365% increase in smartphone use in less than five years. While the rapid uptake of the smartphone by the vision impaired community demonstrates one level of ‘access’ is being achieved, we also identified ongoing issues impacting users. Our research demonstrates that people with disability must be included in the development process in order to ensure technological advancements are empowering and inclusive, especially in challenging times.
Boundary Crossers: How Providers Facilitate Ethnic Minority Families’ Access to Dementia Services
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2021
Objectives Providers who work closely with ethnic minority people with dementia and their familie... more Objectives Providers who work closely with ethnic minority people with dementia and their families are pivotal in helping them access services. However, few studies have examined how these providers actually do this work. Using the concept of “boundary crossers,” this article investigates the strategies applied by these providers to facilitate access to dementia services for ethnic minority people with dementia and their families. Methods Between 2017 and 2020, in-depth video-recorded interviews were conducted with 27 health, aged care, and community service providers working with ethnic minority people living with dementia across Australia. Interviews were conducted in one of seven languages and/or in English, then translated and transcribed verbatim into English. The data were analyzed thematically. Results Family and community stigma associated with dementia and extra-familial care were significant barriers to families engaging with services. To overcome these barriers, participa...
IntroductionIn a 2013 press release issued by Blind Citizens Australia, the advocacy group announ... more IntroductionIn a 2013 press release issued by Blind Citizens Australia, the advocacy group announced they were lodging a human rights complaint against the Australian government and the ABC over the lack of audio description available on the public broadcaster. Audio description is a track of narration included between the lines of dialogue which describes important visual elements of a television show, movie or performance. Audio description is broadly recognised as an essential feature to make television accessible to audiences who are blind or vision impaired (Utray et al.). Indeed, Blind Citizens Australia maintained that audio description was as important as captioning on Australian television:people who are blind have waited too long and are frustrated that audio description on television remains indefinitely beyond our reach. Our Deaf or hearing impaired peers have always seen great commitment from the ABC, but we continue to feel like second class citizens.While audio descri...
This article provides a case for the benefits of captioning recorded lecture content in the Austr... more This article provides a case for the benefits of captioning recorded lecture content in the Australian higher education sector. While online lecture captioning has traditionally been provided on a case-by-case basis to help students who are deaf or hard of hearing, this paper argues for a mainstream approach in order to benefit a range of student groups both with and without disability. It begins with some background on the regulation and technology context for captioning in higher education and online learning in Australia. This is followed by a review of the current literature on the benefits of captioning to a wide range of students both disabled and non-disabled, the perceived barriers to captioning, and how the increasing internationalisation of the university context effects captioning options, both culturally and commercially. The paper concludes by suggesting that it may be inevitable that all recorded lecture content will need to be captioned in the future and highlights the potential benefits to Australian universities to move quickly to embrace this existing technology.
This article is concerned with the recent rise in popularity of video-ondemand services as a form... more This article is concerned with the recent rise in popularity of video-ondemand services as a form of entertainment in Australia and its premise of offering freedom to watch whatever, whenever. The article investigates how the entry of video-on-demand services into the Australian television market has both enabled and disabled televisual content access, focusing on how people with disability access video-on-demand content and the hardware and software they use to do this. It discusses how a lack of accessibility features, reduced useability and cumulative barriers to accessibility has led to failure of these services to be inclusive of everyone.
Despite the rapid evolution in the way in which we watch television-through digitalisation and th... more Despite the rapid evolution in the way in which we watch television-through digitalisation and the introduction of video on demand (VOD) and catch-up services-the inaccessibility of television content remains an issue, specifically for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. This article revisits the claim from 2014 that VOD providers were 'working on' providing closed captions. Building on Ellis' 2014 research, the accessibility of television in Australia in 2016 is analysed using a cross study of current subscription VOD services and catch-up television providers. The research reveals that while some companies have accessibility policies and offer closed captioned content, there have been minimal changes in the provision of captioning, both within the industry and in legislation.
People with disability and new disaster communications: access and the social media mash-up
Disability & Society, 2015
This article explores how a lack of access to increasingly complex and overlapping digital commun... more This article explores how a lack of access to increasingly complex and overlapping digital communications platforms in times of disaster for people with disabilities has the potential to make already life-threatening situations considerably more dangerous. As we are increasingly coming to rely on a social media mash-up of digital platforms to assist in communications during disaster situations, the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities is as dire as if it was high ground during a tsunami or transport during a typhoon. The contemporary social media environment is characterised by a complex and overlapping network of complementary platforms, populated by user-generated content, where people communicate and exchange ideas. In this environment, YouTube videos are posted to Facebook and embedded in blogs, and Twitter is used to link to these other sites and is itself embedded in other platforms. These networks are increasingly supplementing and supplanting more traditional communication platforms, such as the television and radio, particularly in times of disaster. The concern of this paper is that the elements from which this mash-up of communications channels is made are not always accessible to people with disabilities. This evolving network of social media-based communication exposes the limits of existing Internet-based universal design.
This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided th... more This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged, in accordance with our Creative Commons Licence.
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to show the opportunities of application of the pyrolysis... more Purpose: The purpose of this article is to show the opportunities of application of the pyrolysis gas as a fuel for gas turbine power plants based on decommissioned gas turbine engines, including those from aircraft-either turboprop or turboshaft, or both, and also those used on ground vehicles such as tanks and marine engines as well. Methods: The article describes the technology of pyrolysis of different materials for obtaining pyrolysis gas and its further application as a fuel for internal combustion engines was developed in the end of XIX century and was successfully applied for automobile, marine and railway locomotive piston engines till the mid ХХ century when large oil reservoirs were discovered all around the World. Results: the current research not only proves that there exists an economic benefit of application of pyrolysis technology even at nowadays, but also an ecological one, allowing getting rid of garbage Discussion: The proposed examples of successful pyrolysis technology application can be a good basis for further research of transferring modern engines to the pyrolysis gas fuels.
Uploads
Papers by Mike Kent