Perpetuating ableist constructions of the “real world” through complaints about new communication technologies

Abstract

Complaints about the use of new communication technologies are frequent in public discourse and work within a broader assemblage of discourses that promote selective ideologies. What is it that people are doing when they produce these complaints, and how might acts of complaining promote equity in our daily lives? We analyse complaints taken from 16 hours of video recorded dialogues and argue that the complaint discourse about the relationship of new communication technologies to people’s expected embodied functioning and idealized social participation reconstitutes and perpetuates broader ableist discourses about preferred engagement in the “real world.” By identifying intertextuality between two different topical discourses, we expand understanding about the reification of cross-cutting ableist discourses and promote more inclusive language use.