Academic Training in Media Accessibility in Audiovisual Translation at a University Level: The Case of the Spanish University System

Abstract

AbstractIn today’s digital era, media accessibility has emerged as a critical element for ensuring inclusivity in content creation and distribution. With the growing demand for accessible media, academic and professional approaches to training have become instrumental in bridging the gap between content creators and the diverse audience they aim to reach. Academic institutions play a pivotal role in fostering a deeper understanding of media accessibility (MA). Educational programs provide foundational knowledge and critical insights into various aspects of accessibility standards and practices. With the emergence of media accessibility services within the mass media (subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, SDH, and audio description for the blind and partially sighted, AD, basically), the need for training professionals in these areas has arisen. MA has traditionally been regarded as a subfield in audiovisual translation (AVT) that is focused on audiences with sensory disabilities, mostly persons with a hearing or a visual impairment (Romero Fresco in Accessible filmmaking: Integrating translation and accessibility into the filmmaking process. Routledge, 2019). MA may be seen to include AVT and to be just as close to Translation Studies as it is to Film Studies or to the broader area of Accessibility Studies (Greco in Journal of Audiovisual Translation, 1(1): 205–232, 2018). This paper will provide answers to how academic training is carried out, what required skills and competencies, together with curriculum design, methodological approaches, training materials, and assessment are needed, how AVT training at a university level is, using the Spanish context and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) as an example. Finally, information about those research projects nowadays which investigate media accessibility training used by instructors as reference for their teaching contexts will be included.