Collegiate forensics: 2018-2019 communication analysis manuscript (Apple Disability Emojis)

Originally planned for publication in March 2020 but things slowed down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (please stay safe and healthy):

On July 26, 1990, United States president George H. W. Bush signed Americans with Disabilities Act into law, hailed as a civil rights legislation people with disabilities sought for generations. To people born outside of America (including I), this legislation and certain policies were seen as making United States a "safe home for the disabled." Yet 30 years later, there are issues disabled people face such as subtle discrimination in policies, technology, and education, made more clear as we look at disability and COVID-19.

Then a few weeks ago, the blindness community was shocked to learn that, despite calls for accommodations, College Board would not provide hard-copy braille tests to Advanced Placement (AP) test takers who did request such an accommodation, especially for people who signed up for science courses such as biology. College Board's argument was that technology can be a useful tool for test takers given online instruction and resource reallocations, which turned out to be a mixed success. For disabled students, as Kaleigh Brendle from New Jersey (a blind student and an aspiring disability advocate) pointed out in her speech to a blindness advocacy organization a few days ago, it was a frustrating and devastating experience. In the end, College Board agreed to provide braille tests, but as you'll see below, it becomes nothing unless advocacy is sustained. Kaleigh's speech is one of the reasons for publishing the below forensics manuscript as a way for me to reflect on what ADA did for the last three decades, and to offer food for thought as we move toward broader online presence and advocacy (and for speech students, another CA example to study and learn from).

Below is a manuscript of a communication analysis speech I presented during 2018-2019 collegiate speech season (with updates), stemming from the so-called "disability emojis" from Apple which made headlines in 2018. Although the manuscript does not address ADA directly, it addresses a subtle form of discrimination certain groups with disabilities face: technological representation divorced from experiences of disabled people, more so if the "represented group cannot use such medium. This speech made it to semifinal round (top twelve in the nation) of rhetorical criticism (communication analysis) during National Forensic Association (NFA) National Championship held in Santa Ana, California in April 2019.

Pixelated wheelchairs and white canes: analysis of Apple’s disability emojis in the lens of disability and visual rhetoric

2018 wasn’t exactly the “year of disability”, between Stephen Hawking’s death memes and efforts by Washington lawmakers to downplay the ADA’s significance. But in an attempt to rectify that unease, in March 2018, Apple announced the addition of more emojis to your iPhones, and they aren’t winking faces and cucumbers: they’re 13 emoji characters representing people like me: people with disabilities. Diverse publications like Buzzfeed to Ars Technica praised the release as “a high moment for disabled people.” But the World Health Organization reminds us - 300 million people live with varying levels of blindness. Marcel Danesi argues in his 2016 book, The Semiotics of Emojis, emojis, like Apple’s, aim to normalize communication and emotional expression. But instead, Apple normalized the inequity of access for persons with disabilities in the name of progress that prompts the research question:

How do Apple’s Disability Emojis as representational medium construct disability as a locus for discrimination?

To answer, let’s turn to research by Bonnie Tucker of the University of Michigan, titled “Technocapitalist Disability Rhetoric: Confusing Technology for Social Justice”, initially published in the journal of Enculturation in April 2017. Tucker analyzes a series of Super Bowl Ads by Microsoft meant to be empowering through a rhetorical disability studies lens, which is apt for our analysis. To understand how Apple’s attempts at inclusion excluded, we’ll first examine Tucker’s findings, apply them to Apple’s disability emojis, and draw critical implications to yet another attempt to represent disability – not as we see it, but as you see it.

In 2014, Microsoft aired a Super Bowl ad featuring former NFL player Steve Gleason and an ALS patient, and Eye Gaze, a technology to allow him and others to communicate with minimal physical movement. Tucker uses visual rhetoric in disability studies  to analyze how ads like this commodify disabled bodies while presenting a superficially empowering narrative, identifying three tenets: focus placement, emotional appeal, and concept testing.

First, Tucker argues that companies create a locus of discrimination with faulty focus placement. When our empowering messages aren’t focused on disabled personhood, but instead, on how to “save” them, we overlook their commodification and the discrimination inherent in it. Tucker notes that, “… the prominent highlight of the 2014 Super Bowl ad was not Steve Gleason, but the technology that allowed him to talk - eye gaze - thus putting their own product at the center of a message that should have been about combatting disability norms.

Second, Tucker argues that disability is twisted into emotional appeal. In order to operationalize their products, companies must demonstrate a “need” for it, often appealing to sympathy. Microsoft’s ads do this visually, using the contrast between the bodies described to paint one as lacking, different, and weak. The Superbowl ads transform in the minds of audience what is otherwise an attempt to sell a product into a public relations campaign worthy of praise.

Third, Tucker establishes disability as social concept testing. The end goal of companies is to create appealing, mainstream solutions; Amazon’s vocal interface became Alexa, for instance. So disabled people become “… beta testers for a potential product …”. The eye gaze technology shown to empower users with disabilities in 2014 debuted on Windows 10 three years later - they essentially advertised how nice their research and development team was, not a finished empowering tool.

Tucker establishes the steps that companies take to disguise commodification as empowerment. Let’s apply her findings to Apple’s disability emojis.

First, having come together for once, Apple and Microsoft share similar focus placement. Apple claims to focus on disability-related needs, but their appeals to the masses are tellingly different: in their March 2018 announcement, they proclaim that “… technology has no barriers, even for disabled people and their representations …”. Notice the focus is the medium - the iPhone, the emojis - and its scope for mainstream audiences. “Even” represents those with disabilities as a fringe afterthought. Apple focuses on a solution, not the people or norms they face, fulfilling Tucker’s first tenet.

Second, these emojis are steeped in emotional appeal. Apple’s announcement furthers that these emojis “… highlight diverse populations and give voice to people with disabilities …”. But Apple isn’t giving us a voice - they can offer a platform. Their words are not accidental, and portray themselves as restorers of agency for a population without it. Apple appeals to sympathy to sell a need, fulfilling Tucker’s second tenet.

Finally, Apple’s disability emojis are part of a concept test, and they’ve found a defect. 300 million people have no way of interacting with, let alone, viewing digital, visual representations of “themselves”. They’ve rendered us the testers, and this “feature” becomes a “bug”: discrimination instead of inclusion. They didn’t give us a finished project, and outsourced discovery of its flaws to the audience they pretend to help, fulfilling Tucker’s last tenet.

Apple’s newest emojis have a fractured relationship with their audience, to say the least. Having applied Tucker’s findings, we can return to the research question: How do Apple’s Disability Emojis as representational medium construct disability as a locus for discrimination? Apple’s emojis are a form of technological social justice, rather than representing the reality of disability. This prompts two implications: design philosophy and performative advertisement.

First, Apple’s ingrained emoji ableism forces us to rethink about product design in accessibility solutions. Apple’s announcement prominently states that groups like the American Council of the Blind were consulted in creating these emojis. But that changed nothing at the time of release. It doesn’t matter when companies ask the public for feedback - the damage is already done when they use us as testers, a silenced group burdened with finding out why we are misrepresented and oppressed through discriminatory product design in the name of progress.

Finally, Apple’s emojis aren’t assistive technology, but rather lip service. Apple promotes them AS normalized, positive disability, instead of what they are - a vocabulary, tainted with false promises, emotional appeal, and frustration for those who can’t use them. We pitch technology – and advocacy - as life changing to marginalized users; even performing normalized disability as an attempt to help disabled audiences. But we must remember the rewards of advertisements, emojis, and speeches – consumers, trophies, and fleeting change, if any. If we aren’t responsible in what and how we promise for marginalized bodies, then once the applause has ended, so has the advocacy.

In 2015, the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year was the smiley emoji, drawn to the “universal appeal to express our thoughts”. Fast forward to 2020, and that universality has become a barrier. Bonnie Tucker’s research, application to Apple’s disability emojis, and implications, prove that any representational medium can marginalize its users when company profits are involved. In 2019, Apple announced it will prioritize inclusion over marketing. But for now, for its population with disabilities? Apple’s emojis are nothing to smile about.