Lecture : From Media Accessibility to Accessibility Studies: A Widening Perspective

As a domain within audio-visual translation, Media Accessibility (MA) explores how sensorial barriers to communication can be removed and it has long focused on the study of two dominant access modes: audio-description and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing . Developments in human rights, technology and a massive regulatory process, however, have created a true accessibility revolution (Greco, 2018), slowly but surely pushing MA from the periphery of translation studies to its centre (Remael et al, 2018). It is one of the fastest-growing domains in the field which includes “some of the liveliest and most socially relevant research topics in society” (Greco & Jankowska, 2020). MA’s development is characterized by continuously challenging conceptual boundaries and by a large variety of disciplinary perspectives.

In this lecture, Nina Rivers will sketch MA’s development by discussing five broad lenses through which MA has been studied and illustrate each one with a concrete research project the OPEN research team has been involved in: MA from a linguistic perspective, MA from a translational perspective, MA from a social perspective, MA from an arts-based perspective and MA from a cultural perspective.

Nina Reviers is a tenure-track professor at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on Media Accessibility, exploring the friction between accessibility, translation, technology and artistic creation. As co-founder of the OPEN Expertise Centre for Accessible Media and Culture, she values participatory approaches to access research. She is editorial board member of JAT and member of the Languages and the Media Steering Committee.
 

• Open to all students of the Faculty