Meryl Alper
Biographic Data
| ID | 3946127 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Meryl Alper |
| GIVEN NAMES | Meryl |
| FAMILY NAME | Alper |
| SIGNATURE | ALPER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northeastern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6138-1260 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 35 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
“Actually an ED and not just a quirky aspect of autism”
Restrictive eating disorders (EDs) have among the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. To date, little research has investigated the role of digital media in sharing ED experiences and promoting recovery for autistic individuals, despite high autism rates among those with EDs and the potential for social media (SM) to provide resources and support for adolescent girls and young women living with EDs. Given this gap, we undertook an…
Parent and clinician perspectives on the ethics of extended reality technologies for neurodivergent children in the U.S
There has been rapid market growth in recent years for extended reality (XR) technologies (e.g. virtual reality), in part driven by adoption among families with children. There are, however, practical and ethical challenges related to these devices and applications for young people’s learning, leisure, and health. Risks and benefits may be particularly acute for neurodivergent youth, and specifically those with a diagnosis of autism and/or attent…
Digitally Constructing Marginalized Neurodivergence
At the growing intersections of social media and critical disability studies, limited empirical research exists on the role of digital platforms in expressing and constructing neurodivergent identity among subpopulations that additionally belong to other minoritized groups. This study critically intervenes by mapping how what we term “marginalized neurodivergence” is digitally constructed, using the case of young neurodivergent members of the glo…
Disability athwart communication
Journal Article Disability athwart communication Get access Gerard Goggin, Gerard Goggin Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia Corresponding author: Gerard Goggin. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2954-5309 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Meryl Alper, Meryl Alper Department of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, M…
Democratizing the Ethics of Emerging Technologies for Children
This SIG will provide child-computer interaction researchers and practitioners, as well as other interested CSCW attendees, an opportunity to discuss topics related to the ethics of emerging communication and collaboration technologies for children. The
“Here to Have Fun and Fight Ableism”
User biography sections on digital social platforms (hereafter described as “user bios” or “bios”) are spaces for account holders to take narrative ownership in communicating their identities to other users and interlocutors. Online platforms, such as social media, are increasingly used as community hubs for disabled groups, and especially for autistic people (Author; Author; Sins Invalid, 2019). We focus on #Autisktok, one of many enclaves for a…
Pediatric Media Guidance for Parents of Children on the Autism Spectrum
Very little is known about pediatric media guidance, or the one-on-onse advice that medical and clinical professionals (MCPs) communicate to parents about their children's recreational media and technology (RMT) use. One population that stands to benefit from a closer examination is children on the autism spectrum due to their behavior and communication challenges. We surveyed one group of pediatric autism MCPs, applied behavioral analysis (ABA) …
Parental mediation and problematic media use among U.S. children with disabilities and their non-disabled siblings during the Covid-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, caregivers of disabled children have faced adverse conditions complicating their media use management (i.e., parental mediation). Disabled children and non-disabled children in a household may also have distinct cognitive, emotional, and physical needs requiring different parental mediation strategies. In this exploratory study, we surveyed U.S. parents (N = 123) with a disabled and non-disabled child between the age…
TikTok as algorithmically mediated biographical illumination
Scholarship in the sociology of medicine has tended to characterize diagnosis as disruptive to one’s self-concept. This categorization, though, requires reconsideration in light of public conversations about mental health and community building around neurocognitive conditions, particularly among youth online. Drawing upon Tan’s notion of “biographical illumination” (BI), which describes how medical frameworks can enrich personal biographies, we …
U.S. parent perspectives on media guidance from pediatric autism professionals
Screen media guidelines for children set by medical organizations (e.g., the American Academy of Pediatrics) play a significant role in public discourse regarding media and parenting. Physician mediation theory, an adaptation of parental mediation theory, suggests that physician-patient discussion about media content (e.g., online searches) directly shapes patient engagement with said content. Little attention has been paid though as to how guida…
Portables, luggables, and transportables
This article contributes to the history of “mobile media beyond mobile phones” by accounting for genres of portable computing (or “portables”) that emerged in the late 1980s. Though largely overlooked by historians of technology, these mobile, less-than-mobile, and relatively immobile devices helped shape the social and cultural uses of contemporary mobile communication. I argue that the technological capabilities of portables altered users’ expe…
Inclusive sensory ethnography
Media and communication studies has recently begun to ethnographically explore the sensory dimensions of how individuals experience and perceive technology. This turn toward the sensorial has centered primarily on the five “external” senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) and less so on “internal” vestibular and proprioceptive systems that concern bodily spatial positioning. I propose inclusive sensory ethnography to account for greater n…
Giving Voice
How communication technologies meant to empower people with speech disorders—to give voice to the voiceless—are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities. Mobile technologies are often hailed as a way to “give voice to the voiceless.” Behind the praise, though, are beliefs about technology as a gateway to opportunity and voice as a metaphor for agency and self-representation. In Giving Voice, Meryl Alper explores these assumptions by…
Digital technology and rights in the lives of children with disabilities
Children with disabilities, especially those from the Global North, often figure into public discourse as beneficiaries of the “digital revolution.” However, if children’s voices and experiences are generally under-considered in digital policy and rights debates, this is even more likely when it comes to disability. Against this background, this article looks at the global rights of children with disabilities in the digital age. We consider the s…
Children’s preferences for TV show hosts
The human hosts of knowledge-focused TV programs for children play a significant role in young people’s discoveries about themselves and the world. The fact that the majority of these personalities are slim, young, and White men, and the unquestioned truism among TV producers that children prefer such hosts, led an international research team to ask 3399 youth ages 7–10 from 27 countries to describe their ideal host, as well as themselves, throug…
Researching children, intersectionality, and diversity in the digital age
Research on children’s and adolescents’ experiences with media and technology over the past century has largely echoed the concerns of the middle-class and majority culture. We discuss scholars’ corrective efforts, particularly in recent years, in moving beyond these narrow foci to investigate how young people situated across social classes, racial and ethnic boundaries, and forms of disability engage with new media. In particular, we examine how…
Making Computers Accessible
Reviewed by: Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology by Elizabeth R. Petrick Meryl Alper (bio) Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology. By Elizabeth R. Petrick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Pp. vii+196. $49.95. At first glance, print readers of Elizabeth R. Petrick’s Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology might not notice that on the boo…
The Parent App
L.S. Clark, 2013, Oxford University Press: New York, 320 pp., ISBN 987-0-1998-9961-6 As a communication and media studies scholar focusing on families, Lynn Schofield Clark is an expert on how pare
War on Instagram
This paper examines recent acclaim for professional embedded photojournalists who visually document the experience of US soldiers in Afghanistan using the popular mobile photo application Hipstamatic. These photos have stirred controversy among fellow journalists and cultural critics regarding the use of photo filters in Hipstamatic and similar app Instagram, their contribution to the de-professionalization of photojournalism, and the depiction o…
Adding reinforced corners
In this forum we celebrate research that helps to successfully bring the benefits of computing technologies to children, older adults, people with disabilities, and other populations that are often ignored in the design of mass-marketed products. Juan Pablo Hourcade, Editor
Quest to Learn
K. Salen, R. Torres, L. Wolozin, R. Rufo-Tepper, & A. Shapiro, 2011, John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur, Foundation Series in Digital Media and Learning, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, ISBN 978-02625156
War on Instagram
This paper examines recent acclaim for professional embedded photojournalists who visually document the experience of US soldiers in Afghanistan using the popular mobile photo application Hipstamatic. These photos have stirred controversy among fellow journalists and cultural critics regarding the use of photo filters in Hipstamatic and similar app Instagram, their contribution to the de-professionalization of photojournalism, and the depiction o…
TikTok as algorithmically mediated biographical illumination
Scholarship in the sociology of medicine has tended to characterize diagnosis as disruptive to one’s self-concept. This categorization, though, requires reconsideration in light of public conversations about mental health and community building around neurocognitive conditions, particularly among youth online. Drawing upon Tan’s notion of “biographical illumination” (BI), which describes how medical frameworks can enrich personal biographies, we …
Inclusive sensory ethnography
Media and communication studies has recently begun to ethnographically explore the sensory dimensions of how individuals experience and perceive technology. This turn toward the sensorial has centered primarily on the five “external” senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) and less so on “internal” vestibular and proprioceptive systems that concern bodily spatial positioning. I propose inclusive sensory ethnography to account for greater n…
Portables, luggables, and transportables
This article contributes to the history of “mobile media beyond mobile phones” by accounting for genres of portable computing (or “portables”) that emerged in the late 1980s. Though largely overlooked by historians of technology, these mobile, less-than-mobile, and relatively immobile devices helped shape the social and cultural uses of contemporary mobile communication. I argue that the technological capabilities of portables altered users’ expe…
Digital technology and rights in the lives of children with disabilities
Children with disabilities, especially those from the Global North, often figure into public discourse as beneficiaries of the “digital revolution.” However, if children’s voices and experiences are generally under-considered in digital policy and rights debates, this is even more likely when it comes to disability. Against this background, this article looks at the global rights of children with disabilities in the digital age. We consider the s…
Quest to Learn
K. Salen, R. Torres, L. Wolozin, R. Rufo-Tepper, & A. Shapiro, 2011, John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur, Foundation Series in Digital Media and Learning, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, ISBN 978-02625156
Adding reinforced corners
In this forum we celebrate research that helps to successfully bring the benefits of computing technologies to children, older adults, people with disabilities, and other populations that are often ignored in the design of mass-marketed products. Juan Pablo Hourcade, Editor
The Parent App
L.S. Clark, 2013, Oxford University Press: New York, 320 pp., ISBN 987-0-1998-9961-6 As a communication and media studies scholar focusing on families, Lynn Schofield Clark is an expert on how pare
War on Instagram
This paper examines recent acclaim for professional embedded photojournalists who visually document the experience of US soldiers in Afghanistan using the popular mobile photo application Hipstamatic. These photos have stirred controversy among fellow journalists and cultural critics regarding the use of photo filters in Hipstamatic and similar app Instagram, their contribution to the de-professionalization of photojournalism, and the depiction o…
Children’s preferences for TV show hosts
The human hosts of knowledge-focused TV programs for children play a significant role in young people’s discoveries about themselves and the world. The fact that the majority of these personalities are slim, young, and White men, and the unquestioned truism among TV producers that children prefer such hosts, led an international research team to ask 3399 youth ages 7–10 from 27 countries to describe their ideal host, as well as themselves, throug…
Researching children, intersectionality, and diversity in the digital age
Research on children’s and adolescents’ experiences with media and technology over the past century has largely echoed the concerns of the middle-class and majority culture. We discuss scholars’ corrective efforts, particularly in recent years, in moving beyond these narrow foci to investigate how young people situated across social classes, racial and ethnic boundaries, and forms of disability engage with new media. In particular, we examine how…
Making Computers Accessible
Reviewed by: Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology by Elizabeth R. Petrick Meryl Alper (bio) Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology. By Elizabeth R. Petrick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Pp. vii+196. $49.95. At first glance, print readers of Elizabeth R. Petrick’s Making Computers Accessible: Disability Rights and Digital Technology might not notice that on the boo…
Giving Voice
How communication technologies meant to empower people with speech disorders—to give voice to the voiceless—are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities. Mobile technologies are often hailed as a way to “give voice to the voiceless.” Behind the praise, though, are beliefs about technology as a gateway to opportunity and voice as a metaphor for agency and self-representation. In Giving Voice, Meryl Alper explores these assumptions by…
Digital technology and rights in the lives of children with disabilities
Children with disabilities, especially those from the Global North, often figure into public discourse as beneficiaries of the “digital revolution.” However, if children’s voices and experiences are generally under-considered in digital policy and rights debates, this is even more likely when it comes to disability. Against this background, this article looks at the global rights of children with disabilities in the digital age. We consider the s…
Portables, luggables, and transportables
This article contributes to the history of “mobile media beyond mobile phones” by accounting for genres of portable computing (or “portables”) that emerged in the late 1980s. Though largely overlooked by historians of technology, these mobile, less-than-mobile, and relatively immobile devices helped shape the social and cultural uses of contemporary mobile communication. I argue that the technological capabilities of portables altered users’ expe…
Inclusive sensory ethnography
Media and communication studies has recently begun to ethnographically explore the sensory dimensions of how individuals experience and perceive technology. This turn toward the sensorial has centered primarily on the five “external” senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) and less so on “internal” vestibular and proprioceptive systems that concern bodily spatial positioning. I propose inclusive sensory ethnography to account for greater n…
U.S. parent perspectives on media guidance from pediatric autism professionals
Screen media guidelines for children set by medical organizations (e.g., the American Academy of Pediatrics) play a significant role in public discourse regarding media and parenting. Physician mediation theory, an adaptation of parental mediation theory, suggests that physician-patient discussion about media content (e.g., online searches) directly shapes patient engagement with said content. Little attention has been paid though as to how guida…
“Here to Have Fun and Fight Ableism”
User biography sections on digital social platforms (hereafter described as “user bios” or “bios”) are spaces for account holders to take narrative ownership in communicating their identities to other users and interlocutors. Online platforms, such as social media, are increasingly used as community hubs for disabled groups, and especially for autistic people (Author; Author; Sins Invalid, 2019). We focus on #Autisktok, one of many enclaves for a…
Pediatric Media Guidance for Parents of Children on the Autism Spectrum
Very little is known about pediatric media guidance, or the one-on-onse advice that medical and clinical professionals (MCPs) communicate to parents about their children's recreational media and technology (RMT) use. One population that stands to benefit from a closer examination is children on the autism spectrum due to their behavior and communication challenges. We surveyed one group of pediatric autism MCPs, applied behavioral analysis (ABA) …
Parental mediation and problematic media use among U.S. children with disabilities and their non-disabled siblings during the Covid-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, caregivers of disabled children have faced adverse conditions complicating their media use management (i.e., parental mediation). Disabled children and non-disabled children in a household may also have distinct cognitive, emotional, and physical needs requiring different parental mediation strategies. In this exploratory study, we surveyed U.S. parents (N = 123) with a disabled and non-disabled child between the age…
TikTok as algorithmically mediated biographical illumination
Scholarship in the sociology of medicine has tended to characterize diagnosis as disruptive to one’s self-concept. This categorization, though, requires reconsideration in light of public conversations about mental health and community building around neurocognitive conditions, particularly among youth online. Drawing upon Tan’s notion of “biographical illumination” (BI), which describes how medical frameworks can enrich personal biographies, we …
Disability athwart communication
Journal Article Disability athwart communication Get access Gerard Goggin, Gerard Goggin Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia Corresponding author: Gerard Goggin. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2954-5309 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Meryl Alper, Meryl Alper Department of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, M…
Democratizing the Ethics of Emerging Technologies for Children
This SIG will provide child-computer interaction researchers and practitioners, as well as other interested CSCW attendees, an opportunity to discuss topics related to the ethics of emerging communication and collaboration technologies for children. The
“Actually an ED and not just a quirky aspect of autism”
Restrictive eating disorders (EDs) have among the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. To date, little research has investigated the role of digital media in sharing ED experiences and promoting recovery for autistic individuals, despite high autism rates among those with EDs and the potential for social media (SM) to provide resources and support for adolescent girls and young women living with EDs. Given this gap, we undertook an…
Parent and clinician perspectives on the ethics of extended reality technologies for neurodivergent children in the U.S
There has been rapid market growth in recent years for extended reality (XR) technologies (e.g. virtual reality), in part driven by adoption among families with children. There are, however, practical and ethical challenges related to these devices and applications for young people’s learning, leisure, and health. Risks and benefits may be particularly acute for neurodivergent youth, and specifically those with a diagnosis of autism and/or attent…
Digitally Constructing Marginalized Neurodivergence
At the growing intersections of social media and critical disability studies, limited empirical research exists on the role of digital platforms in expressing and constructing neurodivergent identity among subpopulations that additionally belong to other minoritized groups. This study critically intervenes by mapping how what we term “marginalized neurodivergence” is digitally constructed, using the case of young neurodivergent members of the glo…
Computer Science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Child Development and Digital Technology (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Internet privacy (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research (5 works) · Affordance (4 works) · Autism (4 works)