Miscommunication

When I watch TV late at night (which is pretty much everynight!) I turn on the closed captioning so I can keep the volume down and not bother my neighbors. It's a nifty little trick I learned while living in the dorms in undergrad. It's pretty funny sometimes because the captions describe the sound effects as well as the dialogue (like "lips smacking" when people are kissing). They also describe the music playing in the background which is strange to me because it seems that telling a deaf person the name of the song playing in the background would do little to explain the mood it portrays, but I'm not deaf so I may be totally wrong on that. But the most interesting thing to me is how often the captions are wrong.

There are several kinds of "wrong" when it comes to captioning. The 1st kind is pretty innocent: when the actual dialogue varies from the script. Clearly the captions are transcribed from the printed scripts when possible. Sometimes the actors will ad lib a bit, throw in the occasional "honey" or contraction, that aren't scripted. Sometimes though, the ad libbing can be the funniest part, and in those cases the hard of hearing are really missing out!

The 2nd kind is also fairly inconsequential: when the caption is ahead of the show. Sometimes this will give information away ahead of time, particularly in the case of mini-cliffhangers: when the show leaves you hanging before the commercial and makes a revelation afterwards. So, occassionally, I learn who came through the door 30 seconds earlier than I would have otherwise.

But the last type of error can be critical: when the caption is actually wrong! Often it is a close approximation of what is being HEARD, but not what is being SAID. Last night an actor said "child born" and the caption quoted him as having said "child porn." Sometimes the errors can be detected by looking at the context, but not always, especially with the captions moving quickly across the screen. Most often it is names that are messed up, and sometimes the speaker is talking too fast and chunks of dialogue are completely left out. These typos are bad enough when it messes up the plot of Law & Order, or botches the punchline of a joke on The Daily Show, but they are of real concern when it comes to the news (Sorry Jon, but you are a fake news anchor!).

The mistaken captions often incorrectly attribute viewpoints to speakers, either by indicating that a line was said by someone else or by misquoting the person who was actually speaking. They can tip the weather forecast on it's ear, turn a liberal commentator into a right-wing fanatic, or wrongfully convict a person of a crime...at least in the minds of those who rely on the captioning.

At the end of every show a message comes up that says something like "Closed captioning sponsored by Ford Motor Company..." I wonder if the big companies that are paying for this service are aware of the terrible quality. I mean, if I were Ford, this isn't the service I would want to be sponsoring. Of course, this kind of sponsorship is very passive. Ford simply writes a check and then takes it as a tax deduction. This is the kind of thing that goes largely ignored because of the small fraction of the people that use it. But it actually does bother me.

I wonder how often people who can't hear are actually misled by these captions, and I think it's unfair. I am a TV fanatic, I love watching all my shows on a regular basis. I feel as if, by providing such an unreliable service, we are depriving people who can't hear of this enjoyable activity. It also deprives them of pop culture in many ways. Often what is said on TV is the topic of conversation, especially when it comes to politics. If people who can't hear are being fed inaccurate quotes it puts them at a disadvantage in the realm of political discourse. I think about all the regulations imposed on broadcasters by government today, and I wonder if it would be so difficult to require that they be diligent in providing an accurate translation to deaf viewers so that they could at least have access to the same information as the rest of us. The media is skewed enough as it is, can we really allow it to get worse?