Abstract

This project aims to explore the complexities and pitfalls of the rapid shift to remote workspaces as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, predominantly for disabled workers. This shift introduced a new way of working based on the use of mass collaboration platforms that aimed to keep us connected despite the limitations on gathering. With a focus on the stark change of the working environment between 2019-2022, I demonstrate how these platforms are the main channels for holding over older forms of workplace management. These outdated work practices end up deeply ingrained within the design of most mass collaboration tools. This fact both alters our relationship to time and space at work and allows for the exacerbation of discrimination to flow through the virtual workplace. The first chapter explores the former of the two, analyzing the histories of mass collaboration platforms and how they structure our navigation of time. I analyze both Zoom and monday.com to uncover how the crisis allowed many of their shortcomings to go unnoticed. In my second chapter I demonstrate how these virtual tools only further exacerbate ableism in the workplace, despite these spaces being virtual. I use Meta as a case study due to its novelty and incorporation of virtual reality in order to discuss accessibility and inclusion in the workplace. By analyzing these platforms I hope to uncover how these digital platforms can actually produce disability by creating inaccessible environments in the first place.