Noesis

Valleywag picks up on some statistics from Meefeedia, on the growth of vlogs. Deaf vlogs are a bit behind this, and I give a history in this post.

With the growth of vlogging, I have one question: where is the subtitles and solutions to address this? Deaf access where? How do you balance this with individual expression?

When is policy and legislation going to be reviewed to address online space? As I said in this entry over on Grumpy Old Deafies, we have to redefine what we mean by broadcasting. A subtitling petition that addresses television is far too narrow in scope, and needs to be opened out. What is the Deaf Broadcasting Council, TAG, NAD's Technology Committee doing to address this? Committees: all get yourself a blog and communicate with us. Sheila? Ruth? Penny? David? And others, please say something.

What can we do as ordinary individuals to address this? I'm wondering if online space is similar to what we experience in physical space. Deaf individuals will frequently interact with hearing people: when they go to the supermarket, the bank, at a party, at some club. All these instances are individuals communicating, and we won't necessarily be able to access what comes out of their mouth. Unless of course they are bilingual. As online space develops, online space is just an extension of someone in meatspace, and we shouldn't expect access to individuals. Organisations on the other hand are different as they would be in the physical world, however, the BBC has still not addressed a permanent subtitling solution.

There's a conference in Banff (Canada) in just 6 weeks time which addresses standards. However, I don't see anything on multimedia content access there? Who's going and who will get our point across? With an increasing output on the web focused on audio, one has to ask the question: who's addressing the access? Someone please correct me!

We so badly need policy in this area. Before this can happen, there has to be a commitment and Deaf involvement to make this happen.