Diversity and public television: analysis of subtitling as an accessibility service

Abstract

The present article addresses media pluralism from a critical perspective, as a guarantor of attention to social and cultural diversity. The study focuses on deaf individuals, and an analysis is conducted of subtitles as one of the services that guarantees universal access to the contents offered by Spanish Radio and Television (Radiotelevisión Española, RTVE) for social and cultural diversity. Likewise, given the changes in audiovisual consumption in the form of streaming, and the rise of on-demand content, an analysis is not only performed of linear television, but also of live online and on-demand content. For this, a quantitative analysis was performed of a random sample of more than 5000 RTVE programs (2017-2018), to establish the number of subtitled programs for deaf individuals, their schedule, and the types of contents that included this service. Also, a qualitative analysis was performed on a sample of 72 programs distributed among the different channels belonging to this public corporation. Lastly, to evaluate the quality and suitability of the subtitles, an online survey was provided, which was completed by 183 deaf individuals who were users of the RTVE subtitles. Through this combination of methods, we were able to analyze and evaluate the cultural pluralism of RTVE through the subtitles provided for the deaf, associating it with the defense of the fundamental right of freedom of expression and social inclusion, values that must be guaranteed in democratic societies.