Media Accessibility (MA) research has long since ceased to equate access with the mere availability of an accessibility service. Reception studies, participatory approaches, and work on inclusive cultural practice have progressively shifted attention towards what people with disabilities actually experience when they encounter accessible media and cultural events. This article argues that belonging adds a necessary relational dimension to that enquiry. The study reports an exploratory study with 44 blind/partially sighted, deaf/hard-of-hearing, and intellectually disabled participants involved in accessible opera and theatre activities in Italy. A 30-item questionnaire operationalized ten dimensions of belonging and asked participants to assess both their experience of accessible cultural participation in general and the specific inclusive theatrical context they had just experienced. Overall scores were high, but the comparison between the two frames was uneven and therefore informative. The largest descriptive difference concerned Known, followed by Cared for and Needed, while Noticed and Accepted were unchanged. Rather than treating belonging as a stage that follows access or participation, the article proposes it as a way of examining the quality of participation: whether people experience themselves as recognized, consequential, and legitimately part of the cultural setting in which access takes place.
Beyond Access: Belonging as a New Framework for Media Accessibility Research
elena di giovanni
2026-01-01
Abstract
Media Accessibility (MA) research has long since ceased to equate access with the mere availability of an accessibility service. Reception studies, participatory approaches, and work on inclusive cultural practice have progressively shifted attention towards what people with disabilities actually experience when they encounter accessible media and cultural events. This article argues that belonging adds a necessary relational dimension to that enquiry. The study reports an exploratory study with 44 blind/partially sighted, deaf/hard-of-hearing, and intellectually disabled participants involved in accessible opera and theatre activities in Italy. A 30-item questionnaire operationalized ten dimensions of belonging and asked participants to assess both their experience of accessible cultural participation in general and the specific inclusive theatrical context they had just experienced. Overall scores were high, but the comparison between the two frames was uneven and therefore informative. The largest descriptive difference concerned Known, followed by Cared for and Needed, while Noticed and Accepted were unchanged. Rather than treating belonging as a stage that follows access or participation, the article proposes it as a way of examining the quality of participation: whether people experience themselves as recognized, consequential, and legitimately part of the cultural setting in which access takes place.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
