Ellen Parfitt is a highly renowned Deaf blogger from the UK. Ellen was born deaf and wears hearing aids, and primarily communicates through speech and lip reading. However, she is learning BSL (British Sign Language) and is currently in level 2. She began blogging about Deaf issues in May 2015 to being awareness to both Deaf and Hearing communities. Her blog emphasizes these issues as well as goals and achievements that the community has. Since she noticed that there were not many Deaf role models, she decided that blogging would be a medium for Deaf individuals to see how successful a Deaf individual can be. In doing so, she has achieved a lot (rightfully so), such as being invited to discuss Deaf issues with major organizations, being invited by Parliament to launch a “Hearing Matters” campaign (which highlighted many approaches to Deafness), as well as other career goals. Ellen tends to go by E on her blog; E’s Deafie Blogger is meant and used to empower other Deaf individuals.
Most of The Deafie Blogger discusses successes that E or the Deaf community has achieved. For example, she discusses the awards she has received for writing her blog as well as being recognized by Parliament (as previously mentioned) to launch a campaign. Another major theme of her blog is giving advice to fellow Deaf individuals, such as how to apply for a job. She also discusses some issues the Deaf community faces, for example, the struggle the community faces in achieving subtitling in cinemas. E releases blogs whenever she has free time from her career, which can vary from a day to about a week, so her blog posts come out quite frequently. However, since the new year began (January 10th, to be exact), she has not posted new content. In looking at recent comments on her posts, it is obvious that E has people who support her achievements, advice, and blog in general. However, most posts (recently, at least) have not had many comments, or any at all. The statistics on her page show that she currently has a following of 125 individuals through email subscription.
In writing posts, her tone and voice in her blogs tend to be optimistic, happy, and motivating. Her tone also translates into the layout of her posts, she includes positive pictures and her background is a light, pink color. Her blogroll tends to be weaved into the posts themselves and link pages that are related to Deaf achievement. These factors further display E’s voice in keeping her approach to the topic positive and joyous.
In order to further exemplify the upbeat tone that E has, two blog posts are below:
Hello to my amazing followers…
I have some incredible news to share with you all!
As you may know, I was nominated for an award for the Signature Deaf 10th Annual Awards? Well, the ceremony was held a few weeks ago and…
I have only gone and won the Leadership Award..! *aah!*
I couldn’t believe it! It was such a surprise! (This photo captures it all!)
Before the night, I was so proud to be a finalist in a national awards ceremony! I read about the incredible achievements that the other finalists had done, some who’ve set up their own businesses… so I didn’t want to get my hopes up as I was pleased enough to be nominated!
But, I guess all my hard work, sweat and tears paid off, and it was so lovely that everything I’ve done was recognised through winning this award.
I even had to give a speech! (What do you say when you’re that shocked?! — Did I mention, the trophy is quite heavy!)
What a night! It was a great evening, a two course meal with lovely company on our table. Congratulations to all the other award winners and finalists!
I’d just like to take this last note to thank all my remarkable followers for the wonderful messages and motivation you’ve given me over the past three years, through my blogging and campaigning. Also, to my family for their support and everything they’ve done, and finally to my deaf boyfriend, who was the one who encouraged and inspired Deafie Blogger!
Thank you D for sharing this phenomenal night with me… (sharing a rare photo of us with you!)
I will strive to continue blogging, campaigning and doing all I can to improve accessibility for the next deaf generation!
Love E x
This post exemplifies that Deaf individuals have the ability to achieve many great dreams and goals they may have. This post shows that E is a very optimistic, hardworking individual who is also inspiring to many others. Yet another post, which many may take as a negative, further illustrates E’s ability to paint views with a lighter color.
Hello lovely Readers!
How are you all? I’m ever so busy as usual!
As you may know I’m campaigning for more subtitled cinema showings and here’s a recent update… a blog for you all to read!
Michelle Hedley and I have joined forces, along with many others to create a little Subtitle-army! We are working with Action on Hearing Loss who have given us the incredible opportunity to publish a blog on their website about the Subtitled Cinema Campaign. You can read all about it here…
‘Lost in translation: our fight for cinema subtitles’
I’m also so ecstatic that my petition has reached over 5000 signatures, thank you to everyone who made this happen! Let’s see if we can get 6000!
We hope you can get involved and help us to make this change! Share your experiences with #subtitledcinema
We won’t give up!
Love E x
While demonstrating the struggle to achieve subtitles in cinemas, E demonstrates all the effort she puts into giving back to her community. She explicitly states that she has teamed up with a campaign to bring more awareness to the issue at hand, and, on top of that, ends her post with a call to action, “we won’t give up!”
