ABSTRACT
Delving into the nuance of sociality in relation to autistic youth and their uses of media and communication technologies, this chapter reviews relevant theoretical and conceptual framings of disability, autism, and youth. Analysis encompasses three areas: technologies for socialisation (e.g., educational tools, therapeutic devices), materials for socialising (e.g., everyday media use), and media that purportedly promote anti-social behaviour in children. With added reflection from the authors’ ethnographic fieldwork, the chapter argues that media practices of autistic youth reveal tensions and contradictions in how social norms are made, remade, and unmade through highly complex technologically mediated interactions and relationships.
