ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how social media relates to discourses of disability rights issues in the global South. The danger exists, that studies of social media phenomena might only be celebrating the insignificant without dissecting social media usage for ways in which it may feed meaningfully into a process of substantial social, theoretical, legal, political engagement. The basis for disability rights activism emanates from exclusion, which is defined as systematically blocking of individuals or entire communities from rights, opportunities and resources. Advocating against the exclusion of persons with disabilities, the disability rights movement was born in Southern Africa with its roots in Zimbabwe. Social media is central to the contemporary disability rights movement, because it enables disability rights activists to participate using a widely used medium of communication by both office-holders and persons with disabilities. The activists noted that their ability to mobilise many people to support the disability cause using social media was sufficient evidence that their actions were effective.
