SAME LANGUAGE SUBTITLES VITAL!

EVER enjoy a foreign film with great captioning until they start speaking in English for a short time?

Then subtitles stop – ugh! This happened to me the other night on Amazon prime videos. It also happens on Netflix. Double ugh.

What we need to advocate for is SAME LANGUAGE SUBTITLES, and we need same language subtitles on ALL VIDEOS of course.

For example, videos and live streams online now from so many GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS all over the world, including from the White House.

We need same language subtitles to enjoy all our British TV shows. Many times the accents are a little confusing. Read this about the dilemma: https://web.archive.org/web/20080321131957/http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/blink/2007/05/translated_from_the_british.php

Add your comments please. Join the CCAC. Let’s advocate. Let’s Talk Captioning! Equal communication access is the law, and the right thing to do. Go to http://CCACaptioning.org

COMMUNICATION IS LIFE.

CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

CAPTIONING ADVOCACY NEEDS YOU

Guess we’ve been very busy -long time since new blogpost – doing, among other things, Captioning Advocacy!

CCAC has strength in numbers – you are needed too. JOIN today. Why not? Email anytime if you have a question about being a member.

CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

CCACAPTIONING.ORG IS THE WEBSITE

CCAC MISSION – INCLUSION OF QUALITY CAPTIONING UNIVERSALLY

p.s. we welcome guest blogposts about captioning!

CHANGING THOSE CAPTIONING OPTIONS!

EVERY DAY in every way we aim to find – have – enjoy – equal communication access and for many of us – millions – it’s quality captioning we can use. This post is about Media captioning online.

Breaking news is important for all of us to have access to. Videos and live broadcasts online must have quality captioning. The law (e.g. in the USA for TV also online) is that CC is required. Yet many times it takes a strong persistence to figure out how to turn it on (yes really, it’s not always a visible “cc” on the bottom of the screen) and then to adjust it.

Options to adjust it vary – font size, text color, background color, and more. Here’s my effort today to be able to read and use the online news as comfortably as people without hearing differences:

I opened MSNBC. Good news is that videos are all captioned (as required by law) yet at first CC was totally unreadable due to white text on transparent background that was placed right on top of the banner text along bottom of screen. Impossible.

With 4 clicks – yes four – I changed it to the following:
1. click on CC
2. my CC already ON – click on color of text
3. click on color of background
4. click on apply

In the CCAC Members’ Forum the other day we were talking about similar issues for YouTube videos, especially now with the new system YT/Google seems to be using. Check out the options everyone!

JOIN us in the CCAC – your membership is invited! Go to
http://ccacaptioning.org/join/

Summer Solstice and Captioning Advocacy

The long days now in our part of the world seem ideal for expanding our CAPTIONING ADVOCACY activities. How about joining us – helping – in any small way or larger way that works for us both!

CCAC is all volunteers. We need new members and added energies all the time – as much as we welcome donations.

Some CCAC behind-the-scenes chores are listed below – and if you want to suggest a new way or a new idea about how to accomplish the CCAC Mission- please tell us!

Some of the current CCAC captioning advocacy projects are listed below also – and we’d love to have your participation. Email soon.

CCAC Mission – Inclusion of Quality Captioning Universally
Web – http://CCACaptioning.org
Email – CCACaptioning@gmail.com
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Captioning Advocacy Projects all welcome new helpers! Get in touch with questions and ideas for:

CCAC GRANTS FOR LIVE EVENT CAPTIONING – CCAC gives money to educate, raise awareness and make captioning inclusion happen, Apply now! http://ccacaptioning.org/ccac-sponsorship-for-cart-a-new-captioning-advocacy-program/ – help us “market” this offer of Free Captioning.

CAPTIONS CAPTURE THE VOTES Campaign to encourage all government leaders on all levels to make their messages and live events accessible with quality captioning. http://ccacaptioning.org/captions-capture-the-votes/ Volunteers needed.

MEDIA – VIDEO – CAPTIONING ADVOCACY includes so much. Recently, CCAC talked with YOUTUBE/GOOGLE directly. #WHccNOW campaign on social media for White House to add quality CC to all social media videos. CCAC contacts Senators pushing OBM for WEB ACCESS. Every day, volunteers contact many video content owners to use Quality CC, offer to add quality CC to short videos for free or at cost. Media – part of life!

CCAC also participates in Cinema and TV media advocacy, distributes media captioning news, and more…more…more (e.g. April 2016, success for Florida TV station).

AIR TRAVEL ACCESS campaign, info on http://ccacaptioning.org/captioning-transportation/ – CCAC confers directly with USA DOT and we hope to see this develop in 2016. CCAC Let’s fly together – contact us to help. Volunteers welcome.

CAPTIONING TRAINING INFORMATION project. – info here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/144wc5uxvxjjnvB-akUcs3V1Sj15Q8PDKqbLP7IMYg8A/edit
NEW CCAC MOVIE – WE ARE THE CCAC – ENJOY here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5cTKUxgG2M

GOVERNMENT MEETINGS NEED LIVE CAPTIONING – ONSITE AND ONLINE. City council to state level to national – quality CC required.

Ongoing smaller captioning advocacy by many CCAC members every day! We contact TV stations, Internet video producers, schools, churches, employers and others Join discussions in CCAC member forum online. For two examples, Sesame Street new videos need quality CC when published; Leading non-profit for Women in Politics needs CC for all webinars, and many others.

CCAC activities to help with also:
Advocacy projects as above, or a new one you want to do. If there is an area of everyday life where captioning is lacking, why not put yourself forward to lead or participate in a small team which can co-ordinate advocacy activities?

Writers and contributors: If you like writing, you can submit articles about captioning to us for publication or we can help you submit them to external publications to raise awareness and increase provision of captioning

Film-makers: If you have camera equipment and editing skills, you could make a short film or slideshow about your experience of captioning that CCAC can promote via social media and our websites.

Administration and book-keeping: We need volunteers to help us keep track of new members, donations, sponsors, and more essential tasks for the organization.
Web developers and digital marketing experts: We need help to design new web pages and digital promotional materials

Social media leaders: A lot of our work takes place over social media and we need people to monitor and stimulate activity on our various channels

Grants leader: CCAC gives grants for live event captioning to stimulate provision. We are seeking a volunteer who can help deliver outreach activities to support this alongside a fabulous small team in place now

Hearing loss and related Groups Collaborations and Liasons: We need volunteers to continue and develop new working relationships between CCAC and other organizations that support people with hearing loss, deafness, disabilities, education, media, etc.

Fundraising: CCAC is a non-profit organization that needs to raise funds in order to grow its activities. We would be very keen to hear from people with fundraising skills who may be able to assist us in this

Marketing the CCAC and the CCAC Mission – all tasks above are part of this, yet here, someone to use an identified open source system to keep track of it all and more. Yes you can!

REGISTRATION OPEN! CAPTION STUDIES CON AUG 1-2 2016

THIS IS THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF IT’S KIND! YOU ARE INVITED TO REGISTER NOW AND SEND THIS MESSAGE TO ALL YOUR NETWORKS WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN CAPTIONING TOO – YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING TO LOVE AND USE CAPTIONING!

All information about the Con is here: CAPTIONSTUDIES.WOU.EDU
It’s Free, all Online, and Captioned too.
REGISTER NOW USING THIS LINK: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wrt3nZWYz-U_d2Ti3_8DKzr54DTIPMYHiABPNUSzzag/viewform?c=0&w=1
CCAC is very proud to be one of the sponsors of this exciting event and in fact, we are jumping for joy – see you online Augusst 1 and 2. Let’s Talk Captioning!

CCAC IS PLACE 2 B 4 CAPTIONING ADVOCACY
CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM
CCACAPTIONING.ORG

Where Are All the Politicians with Hearing Differences?

YOO HOO – WHERE ARE YOU?

Is hearing loss and deafness still too much stigma to show us your hearing aids, implants, lip-reading, or use of captioning? We need you – we millions of people with hearing differences globally. We’re not shy to talk about this in the CCAC!

Aiming to develop a list, here’s our start today. Please add your own information to this in comments or email to CCACaptioning@gmail.com

With more elected officials on any level with hearing differences, we can see some of our goals met, right? Yes.

HOW about you? Do you want to stand for election? Run for office? Do it! Let us know.

AND – WHO will be help develop this list and take it forward in good ways? For example, talk to these folks now listed to help us advocate for quality captioning in all places needed? to advise us about how to reach other politicians? etc. Volunteer or a small team needed please. You? Say yes – with an email to CCACaptioning@gmail.com now.

 

(Image is book cover by Philip Seib)

CCAC LIST:

CURRENT OFFICE HOLDERS – ANY COUNTRY, ANY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT: 

HOH, deafened, oral deaf:
Mojo Mathers, New Zealand – lip reading and hopefully Captions
Pilar Lima, Spain – SLUser
someone in Estonia we’re told – name?
someone in UK who heads a parliamentary committee on deafness
Lady Hove, UK wears hearing aids (patron of hoh group)

Rand Paul, USA congress – hearing aids

SLUser
Adam Kosa ( Hungary)
Helga Stevens ( Belgium Flanders).

SLUsers use Captioning sometimes

 

FORMER HOH/deafened/deaf politicians:

Bill Clinton, USA, – hearing aids

Gary Malkowski, Canada (SLU?)

 

 

 

CCAC = CAPTIONING ACTIVISM + COMMUNITY

CCACAPTIONING.ORG
CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM
LET’S TALK CAPTIONING!

CAPTION STUDIES CONFERENCE! HEAR THIS!

IT’S HERE! DRUM ROLL! CCAC is very proud to announce the USA’s first CAPTIONING CONFERENCE! All invited to participate online this August 1-2. Stay tuned and see below as information from the source (WOU) spreads on conference webpage, in CCAC Members’ Forum, Social Media, and more. So exciting: http://captionstudies.wou.edu/

MORE:
Caption Studies 2016 Conference Announcement [ http://captionstudies.wou.edu/ ]

The first annual Caption Studies conference in the United States takes place August 1st and 2nd of 2016. Hosted by Western Oregon University, the first conference will feature two days worth of speakers and panels presenting on an array of different caption-related topics—from closed-captioning to captioning research to CART to a caption user focus group. The three strands emphasized at the conference are advocacy, practice, and academic/research. There are presentations from group of stakeholders.

A free virtual conference, i.e. all panels and presentations will be streamed to the web and shown to anyone interested, the conference strives to model best practices for accessible conferences and accessible content online. All videos will be captioned, and all live events will have live, real-time CART captioning.

The conference keynote is Dr. Sean Zdenek, long-time closed caption and accessibility researcher from Texas Tech University. Zdenek’s book, Reading Sounds, was recently released to much support and acclaim.

For more information go to: captionstudies.wou.edu. [http://captionstudies.wou.edu/] captionstudies.com and captionstudiesconference.com both redirect to this same URL.

You can find us at Twitter as @captionstudies. [https://twitter.com/captionstudies]
We plan to use the hashtag: #caption16
The conference Facebook page is here: [https://www.facebook.com/captionstudies/?ref=bookmarks]

If you would like semi-regular announcements regarding the Caption Studies conference, such as when conference registration is open, if and when different speakers or presenters have confirmed, or when more information about 2017 becomes available, watch our Twitter feed. You can also sign up for email notifications here: http://eepurl.com/bWCP0v. All emails on this list will only be used for conference related announcements.

This conference is generously supported by Western Oregon University’s College of Education, Strada Communications, 3 Play Media, and the CCAC.

CaptionStudies17 is tentatively planned to take place face-to-face at Western Oregon University in late July or early August 2017. If you are interested in potentially presenting or sponsoring some part of the conference, please be in touch.

WHAT DO WE DO IN THE CCAC? WE ADVOCATE, EDUCATE, RAISE AWARENESS, PARTICIPATE, COMMUNICATE, COLLABORATE AND INSPIRE! #CAPTIONWORLDNOW

ccacaptioning@gmail.com

When will Facebook show CC for all videos?

Some videos, with Open Captions (OC) give us access to videos on Facebook. Others, don’t seem to have any captioning at all. Boo!

How many of you have tried to contact FB about this?

What more can we all do to find full equal communication access on social media that most of us use every day (too much – smile)?

Please volunteer soon!

CCACAPTIONING.ORG

CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

CCAC = CAPTIONING ACTIVISM + COMMUNITY

JOIN TODAY.

 

Make Noise: Your Voice and Vote Counts!

NEWEST article asking for your voices to talk to candidates this important election year:

http://hearinghealthmatters.org/hearingviews/2016/captions-will-capture-the-votes-by-lauren-storck/

If not you, who? Access to communications with quality captioning is our right, and the right thing to do.

How can CCAC help you get started? Please read the article and let’s talk.

CCACaptioning.org

CCACaptioning@gmail.com

CCAC Surprises End of 2015

CCAC was invited this month to talk with three important and very different agencies about our mission, and to share ideas about “inclusion of quality captioning.” This is not a total surprise of course, since we advocate regularly and vigorously for the CCAC mission, yet it’s a good step forward for captioning advocacy to be consulted face-to-face.

Since we celebrate six years of CCAC activity this time of year also (December 19th is the CCAC anniversary date), it is good to know our voices are noticed. Even if inclusion of quality captioning does not move forward at the speeds millions of us would like, it is moving forward. Our advocacy, education, and raising awareness efforts make sense.

CCAC is a grass-roots citizen advocacy movement and we share common concerns for access and inclusion with many others. CCAC’s advocacy mission, “inclusion of quality captioning universally” defines us. CCAC is not however located in the Washington D.C. area (like many long established groups), we are all volunteers, and relatively-speaking, the CCAC is the “new kid” on the captioning advocacy block (of course we’ve been active on this issue and related things for many more years). We “meet” online mainly, every day in many ways, for “group” work important to the CCAC culture – sharing ideas, information, discussion and action online – step by step.

The Surprises:

1. This month the President of the CCAC spoke directly with Google.com about YouTube Captioning. We are very pleased to be able to learn from them, and to “tell them our issues!” We want quality CC on all videos ASAP, and we hope our advocacy and some technical advice offered will be useful there. They said it will, and we hope the conversation continues. Fan or crowd captioning is their newest feature for YT videos, and CCAC members contributed good questions and feedback about what seem to be remaining bugs and inefficiency in this newest feature. At the same time, as always, we emphasized how important quality CC as a first thought is, not as an afterthought – and our dedication to “equal communication access” online for all media.
2. Next week we will speak (live) to a person in the Department of Transportation (USA) about Air Travel Access. CCAC has been advocating since 2010 for this important concern. Read more on the CCAC webpage for this project-advocacy takes loads of time! http://ccacaptioning.org/captioning-transportation/
3. Finally, at least for now, an active CCAC member in Geneva (Switzerland) will meet in person in the new year to discuss a recent WHO survey about assistive devices. Our interest is advocating for the best inclusion of media captioning, and live event captioning also, in any WHO matters and interests as they strive to promote access and inclusion of PWD world-wide. It’s a healthy thing to do.

Raise your voices anyplace you can for communication access. We hope you join and use the CCAC too – to build stronger collaborations. Join the CCAC, find us on social media, and tell others about this blog please.

CCACaptioning.org

CCACaptioning@gmail.com

twitter.com/CCACaptioning

www.facebook.com/ccac.captioning

www.youtube.com/user/CCACORG/videos

Please volunteer soon!