"Because Some Sighted People, They Don't Know What the Heck You're Talking About:" A Study of Blind TikTokers' Infrastructuring Work to Build Independence
Authors: Yao Lyu, John M. Carroll
Abstract: There has been extensive research on the experiences of individuals with visual impairments on text- and image-based social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. However, little is known about the experiences of visually impaired users on short-video platforms like TikTok. To bridge this gap, we conducted an interview study with 30 BlindTokers (the nickname of blind TikTokers). Our study aimed to explore the various activities of BlindTokers on TikTok, including everyday entertainment, professional development, and community engagement. The widespread usage of TikTok among participants demonstrated that they considered TikTok and its associated experiences as the infrastructure for their activities. Additionally, participants reported experiencing breakdowns in this infrastructure due to accessibility issues. They had to carry out infrastructuring work to resolve the breakdowns. Blind users' various practices on TikTok also foregrounded their perceptions of independence. We then discussed blind users' nuanced understanding of the TikTok-mediated independence; we also critically examined BlindTokers' infrastructuring work for such independence.
Tools for this paper
Ask questions about this paper to our AI assistant
You can also chat with multiple papers at once here.
⚠The license of the paper does not allow us to build upon its content and the AI assistant only knows about the paper metadata rather than the full article.
The previous summary was created more than a year ago and can be re-run (if necessary) by clicking on the Run button below.
⚠The license of this specific paper does not allow us to build upon its content and the summarizing tools will be run using the paper metadata rather than the full article. However, it still does a good job, and you can also try our tools on papers with more open licenses.
Look for similar papers (in beta version)
We compare the title and abstract with papers indexed in our database. For arXiv papers, we search within the same category; for DOI and other sources, we search across sources and subjects. You can rerun the search as our database grows.
Disclaimer: The AI-based summarization tool and virtual assistant provided on this website may not always provide accurate and complete summaries or responses. We encourage you to carefully review and evaluate the generated content to ensure its quality and relevance to your needs.