Accessibility as Aesthetic in Broadcast Media: Critical Access Theory and Disability Justice as Project-Based Learning

Abstract

The obligation to make broadcast media accessible is often taught as the last step in media production. This article describes a year-long project that paired disabled media-makers with students to create three films and a podcast rooted in critical access theory and disability justice, which necessitated creative, collaborative access planning at the onset of each production. This public pedagogy project promoted technical skills and attitudinal change by applying an intellectual partnership model that allowed students to develop resistance to dominant discourses about access that centered disability in new ways—as a desirable production feature rather than as simply an “add-on.”