College TV News Websites: Accessibility and Mobile Readiness

Abstract

College television newscasts serve as training grounds for future broadcast journalists and should help students understand emerging trends in the field, such as social media use and developing web and multimedia skills. Increasingly, television news websites need to connect with technologically diverse audiences, and the industry is under increasing legal pressure to make its websites more accessible, particularly in terms of captioning. In addition, with smartphone use becoming almost ubiquitous and people turning to their smartphones as news sources, the industry needs to make sure their websites are responsive to mobile devices. This study examined award-winning college television news websites to see if they are preparing students for the realities of communicating with technologically diverse audiences by examining website mobile readiness and accessibility, including captioning adoption. While most sites were usable on mobile devices, about a quarter did not offer captioning, and there were wide spread accessibility problems.