Joe Clark: Media access

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Articles on captioning and media access

Updated 2001.07.15

Articles on captioning, audio description, and the like

Due to popular demand, I present a bibliography of my published articles on captioning, audio description, and similar topics. Several are now available online – just follow the links. You’re on your own tracking down hardcopies of these articles.

  1. At A List Apart:
    1. All the Access Money Can Buy” – BMWFilms.com and accessibility
    2. At A List Apart: Flash access: Unclear on the concept – Macromedia is late to the party in making Flash accessibility. Are they too late altogether, and will hotshot young designer d00dz get the message anyway?
  2. “Typography and TV captioning"
    Print, January/February 1989
  3. “Videos should be closed-captioned”
    Billboard, August 5, 1989
  4. “Helping the deaf ‘hear’ television" (not my choice of title, I assure you)
    Toronto Globe and Mail, August 25, 1989
  5. “Bill shows government not listening to needs of hearing impaired”
    Playback, January 22, 1990
  6. “Our right to good quality captions”
    Vibrations (Canadian Hearing Society newsletter), October 1989
  7. “Isn’t it time to demand quality captions?”
    Disability Rag, March/April 1989
  8. “Captions for queers”
    OutWeek, January 14, 1990 (on the need for captioning of gay film and TV)
  9. Snow job
    Village Voice, June 15, 1993 (on crappy "subtitled" version of Snow’s "Informer" music video and superior, if still flawed, captioned version)
  10. Between the lines
    Economist, May 7, 1994 (on the use of the U.S. Line 21 captioning system in U.K.)
  11. Captive audience
    Vibe, October 1994 (on captioned music video – I disclaim all responsibility for the way this story turned out in the published version)
  12. Reading the silver screen
    Technology Review, July 1994 (on captioning for motion pictures in theatres)
  13. Follow the Bouncing Ball, ’90s-style
    Emigre 33, Winter 1995 (on captioned music videos – companion to “Slogans High and Low”)
  14. Out of the Caption Closet” – an unpublished story for the Village Voice arguing that hearing people can too enjoy captioning, dammit!
  15. An unpublished story on the National Center for Accessible Media’s Motion Picture Access (MoPix) project written for the Toronto Globe and Mail (including discussion of a National Film Board technology for synchronizing audio with film) and a sidebar on audio description
  16. Life goes on without the graphics
    Globe and Mail, November 14, 1995 (on the barriers graphics pose to many World Wide Web users)

Also, one conference paper:

  1. Typographic requirements for captioning for HDTV: An ancient presentation made at the Deaf Way conference way back in 1989 (!)