The power of captioning for deaf/hh organizations

I see this again and again the lack of captions in videos by organizations that serve the deaf and hard of hearing community, and even for parents of deaf and hard of hearing children. The lack of captions or subtitles is actually quite prevalent which makes the whole situation an awkward oxymoron of sorts. You'd half expect a transcript be available if captions or subtitles aren't available but that end up missing, too.  Really, for an organization, how hard can it be to include captions?  For any organizations worth its salt would have the common sense and smarts to make sure all of their videos are captioned.

Why do some deaf/hh run organizations cannot include captions or subtitles in their own videos in their effort to get the message out?  There is NO TRUTH at all for a non-captioned (and no transcript) video in getting the message out to the larger society who either cannot hear well to understand the spoken words completely or do not know or have trouble following sign language. If an organization want to build a bridge make sure the span crosses completely the communication chasm by including captions and/or transcripts (must remember the deaf/blind people out there, too!). By not including captions/subtitles the message will simply spin on its own going nowhere. It'd be even worse if the message only stayed within a certain deaf/hh community when the intent was to get the message out.  How can that happen if videos are not inaccessible to the majority of the population? Why practice hypocrisy and commit the same communication oppression?

Bottom line, organizations that serve deaf and hard of hearing community have a better chance in getting the message out if their videos are captioned. Otherwise your "truth" will simply go nowhere. A wasted time and effort.

Hypocrisy when it comes to captioning vs transcript in videos?

This has been an ongoing hypocrisy for quite awhile when it comes to signed videos that do not provide any subtitles or captions but instead provide transcripts for those who do not know sign language. For years culturally deaf people have complained loudly how videos they watched were never captioned such as TV shows and movies over cable and the internet, including YouTube videos. But that has been changing slowly (or quickly depending on your perspective) while captioning and easy to use subtitling technology catches up. But imagine instead of subtitles or captions you have a transcript for each video. Why not just provide a transcript instead?

Well, it's not quite the same thing since it provides an obvious disconnect between the viewers and those in the videos because other visual cues and emotions would be entirely lost.  So, it makes good business sense is to provide captions/subtitles along with the signing in a video. This allows non-signing viewers a certain connect with signers seen in a video. It is just not those who do not know sign language but those who may be weak in sign language and having captions helps. It also makes good common sense to include captions in videos since that will help reach a wider audience regardless of who the viewing audience is.

But the hypocrisy continues. Some bray saying that putting captions in a signing video "pollutes" it. If that is their logic for an excuse then putting captions in a speaking video also "pollutes" it. Laughable on both sides.

So, if you are running a deaf/hh business or an organization and have the means and wherewithal to include captions to your videos then please do it. If you believe in communication access and inclusion your business or organization ought to be including captions/subtitles in their videos otherwise you and your organization or business  just end up as a bunch of hypocritical people with a stupid excuse not to provide captions/subtitles but tosses out a transcript instead. If you do that, then please do not complain again about the lack of captions or subtitles in movies, TV shows, news shows, internet videos, and on YouTube.  In fact, you would have no right to complain because your organization or business refuses to provide captions/subtitles in their own videos. In fact, by refusing to do so you've become just like....them.

David Armand in "Where I Lay my Hat"

David Armand, an English comedian who is known for his visual sight gags using mime movements and gestures to "interpret" a song. He is especially well known for a song he mimed called "Torn" a few years back that propelled him to comedic status. Here are two videos with subtitles that capture his funny comedy style of miming a song. Here he plays as "Johann Lippowitz" an interpretive mime to a song for "Where I lay my hat" by Paul Young and "Torn" by Natalie Imbrulia.




TORN by Natalie Imbruglia.




UPDATE: There's a bit of a debate in one forum over David Armand's mime skit on "Torn" where some forum members think it's a snark against the Deaf community making fun of sign language (which is not the case) and some objection over the use of the words "deaf karaoke".