Just finished voting in the Deaf Blog Awards. The only category I could not cast a reliable vote on was the vlogs. Lack of captioning on the vlogs made it difficult for me to understand some of them and get the full benefit from viewing them. While I do communicate with sign language, my sign language receptive skills are somewhat limited, and I know I am far from alone in that.
So, vloggers, I love the way you express your thoughts so creatively! But, could you please add captions to your vlogs even if it causes a slight delay in getting them posted? How can the deaf community expect the regular media to add captions to their internet broadcasts if the deaf community does not take the lead itself in captioning ALL of its vlogs?
The technology for adding captions to the vlogs is quite simple. Poke around Grant Laird or Jared Evans' blogs and you will find information on how to caption vlogs.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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11 comments:
Hi Jamie, producing vlogs takes time and so does adding captions, in some cases taking the same amount of time it takes to create the vlog itself.
Captioning is a big job. I hope that someone would come up with funds for captioning these vlogs.
I think you have made a good point here, Jaimie. Not only would it be helpful to those deaf/hoh individuals who do not have good sign language skills, but I often wish I could refer some of my hearing colleagues to such vlogs, that they might gain some understanding of Deafhood, the Deaf perspective, etc. There have been a number of interesting vlogs that I think the Hearing Community could benefit from also...IF captioning is made available. If we desire hearing people to become more aware of and educated about our issues, then we have to meet them halfway.
There's nothing stopping you from rewinding the vlogs as many times as you need to get the full meaning out of them. I see them as a great opportunity to improve my receptive skills that I might not have if there were captions flowing across the bottom.
I agree with you totally in that regard. It's only fair that we Deaf people set an example if we want the Hearing society to do the same for us...
maybe someone who knows how to do the video thing post a list of websites with software that could add captions in without complications?
sorry about that, missed the last part of your blog...i dunno who the names you've mentioned are..could you link their blogs?
How about this?
Blogs Need ASL for the English-Impaired?
I think it should be up to each vlogger's discretion whether to caption their vlogs or not. For those who want to, great, but if they are disclined, that's fine, too. Many hearing vloggers don't bother to caption theirs. So why should we be held to a different standard? If they want to understand the blogs, then they can learn sign language. Or use the blogs to work on their
receptive skills. Some people are more comfortable expressing themselves in one language alone. Some feel captioning task to be time consuming or difficult to do.
Personally, if I start vlogging, I would want my vlogs to be captioned to achieve a wider audience. But I don't know if I could be tech-savvy or patient enough to acocmplish that.
mishkazena
As a Hearie supporter of Deaf Rights, I can say I learned the hard way that there is no way to understand Deaf Culture WITHOUT learning at least a rudimentary understanding of ASL.
Thus, I supoport Deaf vloggers who want to deliver their message in ASL only. To force Hearies to understand ASL in order to properly hear their message.
But then, most 'hearies' won't bother, it serves no purpose 'forcing' people to learn ASL to follow, it will never work. This is the rhetoric of the isolationist. You have top encourage people, not, coherce them, make it FUN, not adopt a, my way or the highway approach. It will isolate the deaf, we want out of that.
MM
I am a hearing person. I enjoy watching vlogs as opposed to reading blogs, but I do both. I think vlogs are wonderful. Another alternative for hearing people that don't know ASL is just provide a transcript of what is being signed. That is if you want this information shared with the hearing community of non-signers. If you want to reach an audience outside the Deaf community, it is important to reach them in their own language. Thats only if you are looking to reach a larger audience.
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