Media accessibility: a right for all

Australians with hearing and vision impairments or from non-English speaking backgrounds need access to film and TV. Genevieve Tait found that it’s not just a matter of principle, but also a good business.

It is currently estimated that one in six Australians has a hearing impairment; a figure expected to increase 20 percent by 2050. And by 2020, there will be approximately 600,000 blind or vision impaired Australians.

With such projections, it’s clear why over the past two years there has been a push to increase media accessibility for this segment of the population; captions and audio description can allow them to access films and television. Captions are a transcript of the program’s audio track, displayed on screen. They also convey audio effects such as music and sound effects through text.

Open captions are displayed for everyone to see (cinema), while closed captions are only played when an individual selects the option (DVD and television).