The present study is a work in progress that examines cultural constructions of disability in virtual settings, and more specifically: (a) how disability as a form of difference is culturally constructed in online environments by identifying and analyzing newspaper and online news media articles and online posts published in response to these articles in digital Greek Cypriot media; and (b) how cultural constructions of disability and difference may be mediated through the use of online technology and what their implications are for the fields of education and disability studies.

The current technological revolution brings to the fore the role of media and especially digital media in the restructuring of cultural forms.  Social media and the increase of social digital networks creates ever-evolving cyberspaces and forms of culture and pedagogy which reform social interaction, redefine social relationships and provide new opportunities for research and practice in social sciences and education (Selwyn, 2007; Kellner & Share, 2005).  Today social media is a form of pedagogy for attitudes, values, roles, and offers new possibilities for action.  These innovations call for critical approaches on how media constructs meanings and values and how online communication transforms the cultural and educational setting.  According to Merchant (2005) social media contributes in discursive practices with the redefinition of who we are and how we relate with others.  It promotes the re-evaluation of identity and interactions and reinforces the sense of new identities and social relationships concerned with welfare and education. 

Disability, together with other forms of diversity, has been in the centre of research and debates on cultural and social identity.  From the critique of the “medical model” of disability, which locates “problems” and “deficits” within the individual, has emerged the “social model” identifying disability as a result of systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (Barnes, Mercer & Shakespeare, 1999). A variety of cultural, educational and social settings provided for years an abundant context for the study of disability construction and the complexity of disability identity in and out of the two models.  As these settings are changing, virtual environments provide new opportunities to re-evaluate disability construction, through multiple and complex interactions, and in relation to deficit, social or human rights models.  However, current research on disability construction in social digital media looks into self-identity and representation, focusing more on disabled individuals as users, and less on the rest of “virtual society’s” attitudes and discourse (e.g. Carr, 2010; Watlinga, 2011).  On the other hand, Galis (2011) argues that in order to gain an understanding of how disability may be constructed in digital space, it is crucial that we recognize the ‘physical’ boundaries of the social model. In this way we can re-establish the notions of ‘embodied’ vs. ‘disembodied’ in virtual interaction, and acknowledge how digital media representations can help us construct our understanding of the world (Kellner & Share, 2005), including diversity and disability.  In addition to the issues of barriers, research also examines the way people re-establish their own identity and relationships with familiar and unfamiliar audiences, with others with whom they have little or no face to face interaction (Merchant, 2005).  Self-identity is constructed within discourse and through difference (Hall, 1996 in Saltes 2013) and hence, for disabled people, the concept of identity can be a source of debate in that it is based on social norms that others impose.  Transition from physical to digital space alternates the interactional rules and the way ‘trust’ is established.  For disabled people, this alterations raise important questions about disclosure of disability (Saltes, 2013), as well as issues about interaction and conceptualization of disability by online peers.

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