Accessibility of the Public Sphere and the Agenda of Public Internet Sites Dedicated to the Issues of Blind People

The public sphere as understood by Hannah Arendt is a place of the “common world,” a space of human association. It is the place where we can escape from the loneliness of our private, “elusive,” finite existences in order to associate with something greater. Politically, in the public sphere we can talk about public concerns and be certain that we will be heard. However, in practice, as theorists of the public sphere demonstrate, the possibility of meeting and communication for different groups in a common communicative field often does not arise. Thus, a person marked with a disability status in Russia resides almost exclusively in a private world, like an invisible person. The inclusion of people with disabilities into the “common world” is hindered by both the specifics of the public sphere in the post-Soviet reality, where the “private prevailed over the public” (B. Gladarev), and the problems of physical, sensory, access to public spaces as well as the specific representations of people with disabilities in mass media. Examples of successful communication platforms are various websites and mailing lists where blind people themselves present and discuss issues they consider important: how a blind client can sign documents, how audio descriptions work in movie theaters, and which telephone to choose or how to make a certain application work on it. The “common world” as a place of mutual representation, communication, and political action also appears on the platforms created by intersectional associations of women with various types of disabilities.

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