Cultural Competency Through Captioning

Submitted by Jeannette Johnson [1] on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 14:20

As a Deaf Community activist, I'm required to exhibit knowledge about the issues I'm advocating for, just like any professional, but one skill that's often overlooked is exhibiting cultural competence. This is something that many people take for granted, unless you do international business.  Deaf culture and hearing culture are two very different cultures, and a Deaf activist must be able to navigate through both cultures with ease to do their advocacy work successfully.

When I am talking about cultural competence, I do not mean business etiquette, although that is extremely important. What I mean is the ability to converse with others to put them at ease, showing that you are not that different from them.  This could involve conversations about the latest ball game, the latest blockbuster movie, and the latest news in the media. These conversations helps to break the ice and puts people more at ease, therefore, people more receptive to what will be said. This is extremely common, and essential for persons wanting to move up the corporate ladder.

However, this cannot be fully achieved when television/cable shows and movies shown online aren't captioned.  We're shut out of these venues and consequently, not able to conduct business as well as possible, because mainstream media still holds resistance to providing equal communication access. Take Netflix, for instance. Only after loud protests ensued about Netflix refusing to provide captions for their online streaming videos, the company responded. However, in their response, they claimed it would take up to a year for implementation [2].

It is quite unfortunate that Netflix can legally postpone this up to a year, and technically they even don't have to address the complaints, since the American Disabilities Act (ADA) does not cover equal access for the Internet.  I find it ironic that as Deaf Community members embrace the online world, solidifying our connections with each other through v/blogs and online forums in unprecedented ways, we're also being left behind in terms of mainstream media and culture, because online captions are not being provided in a reasonable time frame.

Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology [3] (COAT), of which the NAD is a founding member, is working to change this. COAT is currently sponsoring a bill titled the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act [4].  Representative Markey of Massachusetts has introduced this bill to Congress, but there still needs to be visible public support before it is adopted. COAT has made it easy for the Deaf Community and its allies to contact their representatives and senators [5] to encourage them to pass this bill.

We know change can be accomplished with online activism; we've seen it in action. (Twitter and Iran anyone? [6])  If enough of us contact our representatives and senators, keeping the heat on to provide online captioning, then we all can say that we're social change agents because we will have accomplished something.  And at the end of the day, we can grab a bucket of popcorn, put up our feet and forget our day's worries by enjoying complete access to a movie playing on our computer.  What couldn't be better than that?