Social Media

Since the early 2000s, Social Media has taken the world to a new level of shared information. For years, we accessed information via people, print, or just the World Wide Web. While that still happens today, social media has allowed further connection and interaction to happen. People have become accustomed to scrolling, either with a computer mouse or a finger on a mobile. We want information, and we want it now; social media gets it to us quickly and easily. Posts are made around the clock from around the world.

While accessibility is still an issue for some social media situations, the Deaf community is one step closer to equality than when social media first came on the scene. This critical opportunity allows a person to not feel different because it gives everyone a chance to create their own space, online. This medium has opened doors for the Deaf community allowing them to be a user or participant rather than as the deaf person. At the same time, social media has also allowed Deaf people to claim their identity and celebrate Deaf history and culture. Without realizing it, social media became an instrumental opportunity that impacted the Deaf community, in various ways.

A user can post something on social media and followers can like and/or share that post to others. Doing this is what makes some posts go viral. Although it’s very rare, there is no proven formula that helps us know just how a post can become viral in a matter of minutes. Is it the image or graphic associated with the post? Is it the timing of the post? Is it the length? Is it trendy? If [Page 892]a person with a large following posted something that gets trending, it may blow up your newsfeed—that sort of algorithm can hurt or praise the Deaf community.

For example, a deaf woman uploaded a short video clip to YouTube that showed her hearing herself for the first time. As the video clip goes on, viewers watch tears of joy stream down her face. While this isn’t something that reflects the Deaf community, this video went viral (over 24 million views). It perpetuates the wrong idea that deaf people need to be fixed. At the same time, a little Kid of Deaf Adults (KODA) girl signed during her class’ rendition of Santa Is His Name-O touched everyone’s hearts. The KODA’s mother uploaded the video to YouTube to share with her family and friends and was not expecting how big of an impact it made. The little KODA was adored so much, she grabbed the attention of AOL, BuzzFeed, E!, The Today Show, and even Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin. However, social media can be a dangerous ground to work from. Stories can get twisted or posts can be misunderstood. Yet, with the right kind of crowd-sourcing, awareness is spread and clarification comes to place.

If businesses and companies are to be deaf friendly, they have to be accessible. To have accessible content means they are much more inclusive. It means to understand their audience’s needs and ensure their audience can understand their content. To do so could mean videos have caption files, webinars include American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters, photo posts include a visual description, and so on. Accessibility is key to having a more inclusive social media environment. Having a caption file with your video is actually a bonus for the company—not only does it allow a screen reader to access your text in the video, the caption file allows the video to be searchable on the Internet. Sometimes having a title and description isn’t enough.

...