Captions On, Off, on TV, Online: Accessibility and Search Engine Optimization in Online Closed Captioning

This article considers the current state of closed captioning for online videos, in the U.S. context. As media access is foundational to cultural citizenship, captions and similar accessibility features are essential to forming an inclusive participatory culture, online and off. Drawing on the history of television closed captioning and theatrical film captioning, it argues that captions and deafness have long been associated with the private, complicating their advancement under civil rights laws concerned with the public sphere and facilitating advancement through telecommunications laws and notions of consumer choice. This article cautions that such neoliberal solutions cannot be relied on to meet the needs—and civil rights—of deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans, and might in fact damage the coalitional identity politics on which civil rights for people with disabilities depend, unless such politics can be reinvigorated through emphasis on unification around shared goals