Closed Captioning

A detailed Summary of Closed Captioning

Have you ever wondered why those pesky words pop up on your television screen sometimes? These words are the product of countless attempts of equaling the playing field of our society. The words you see are called, "Closed Captioning". These words allow the hearing impaired to watch television just like we do, in the hearing world. I will try to give you a basic background of this technological breakthrough.

In 1972 the first captioned broadcast was, "The French Chef" a PBS show. The group that was responsible for this accomplishment was the "Caption Center". By 1987, the Caption Center was given a grant for three years in the sum of 1 million dollars so they could close caption all nationally syndicated television programming. (Caption center, www.caption.org) As of July of 1993, all television sets with at least a 13-inch screen had to have a decoder built into them that would allow viewers to display closed captioning. This was not a new phenomenon for viewers. Closed Captioning has existed since the early 1900's when silent films were introduced to the world. It wasn't until recently that closed captioning would be used as a tool for the hearing impaired. In 1996, congress passed laws that made all video, cable o

r public broadcasters phase in closed captioning into their programs. (Robson, PG 222)

Closed captions are a key to the social link between both the deaf and the hearing worlds. CC, which also means closed captioning, is a way for deaf viewers to interact with the world around them. CC allows deaf people to watch television and participate in other venues like concerts, meetings and speeches. CC is a major breakthrough and the deaf community owes its presence to the Americans with Disabilities Act, (also known as ADA) for the revamping of their laws, because before the revamping only government-funded or government-produced public service announcements were closed-captioned. This was ridiculous because 44 million people are affected by the ADA and half of that number is of hearing impaired. (ADA) Why did it take so long for CC to happen? Not too many people can answer this question. Many say it was because people who are deaf were looked upon as second-class citizens.

There are many questions about captioning. The basics are, "why do captions look the way they do", "why do captions jump around the screen", and "why do captions look different on other stations". All the answers to these questions are simple. The reason captions look the way they do, is because it was proven that all upper cased lettering was easier to read than mixed

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 914
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous