Scholarly inquiry into the conceptual foundations and practical initiatives for supporting people with disabilities (PwDs) is both timely and flourishing within the fields of communication and media studies. This Working Group (WG) seeks to enhance these understandings and initiatives through inclusive, international, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The WG affirms the imperative for societies to adopt a social communication model of disability—one that fosters awareness, critical analysis, and practice rooted in the recognition of disability as a crucial dimension of human diversity.
Accordingly, the WG aims to cultivate an international intellectual research space that involves geographies of the South and the West and is dedicated to enhancing supportive and inclusive communication for PwDs. Its activities span collaborative research, knowledge exchange, and network-building among scholars, PwDs, and key stakeholders.
Through these efforts, the WG fosters scholarly engagement, activist dialogue, and multifaceted initiatives that foreground disability and inclusivity in communication.
Co-chair: Panayiota Tsatsou, Birmingham City University, UK [Contact]
Co-chair: Shahla Adnan, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan [Contact]
Vice-Chair: Paula Saukko, Loughborough University, UK [Contact]
Vice-Chair: Yuqiao Yan, Tsinghua University, China [Contact]
Vice-Chair: Ying Lai, Beijing Normal University, China [Contact]
See the list of all current members of the Inclusive Communication and People with Disabilities (ICO) Working Group.
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