Interviews & Articles

Many viewers have more and more choices in what, when and where they watch, use and interact with audiovisual media. Although programmes are available globally, accessibility is often restricted. Decisions are made in faraway places with no consideration of the individual consumer – who might be restricted by language or by some type of handicap. And what about quality? Does the quality of content suffer and is it brought down to a lower level due to global developments, without considering  local circumstances? As regards the conference theme, Alex Varley, one of our keynote speakers in the Opening, offers his ideas about the meaning of local access in a global context. What are the advantages, challenges and dangers of globalisation, even localism, as exemplified in the case of Australia?

By Alex Varley

A fear about the global market is that everything will automatically be dumbed down to the lowest level and quality will suffer. Feeding the local paranoia is that America is the centre of the media world and the UK is the leader in disability access. Both are on the other side of the globe from Australia. It would seem that a remote, relatively small population would suffer from low levels of access and have to struggle to improve its situation, yet this is not the reality. 

In a market where 70 percent of television programming, nearly all movies and most DVDs are imported content, Australia has opportunities to benefit from developments in other parts of the world. In the presentation New World Order… Exploiting the Global Media Empire to Expand Disabled Access, the issue of how a small population can find leverage in the global market to improve access is explored. Globalisation, particularly of English-language content, has brought about an international, highly-competitive access industry where captioning files are traded around the world; Australian captioners cover the European midnight-to-dawn shifts remotely; an audio menu recorded in London appears in a DVD store in the Australian outback; technical improvements appear overnight.

Yet, access is not guaranteed – sometimes a global approach restricts local development. Decisions are made in faraway places with no consideration of a few deaf and blind consumers in Australia. Technical standards mean that American developments may not translate due to different equipment. Poor quality can also be replicated and distributed and only picked up when it is too late. 

What is the best strategy for dealing with this? Without looking at local issues, any strategy is doomed to fail. Australian cultural values ensure that the popular American strategy of litigation is unlikely to get past first post. Local politicians are equally important, as they dictate local market conditions that the global media has to follow. The production process shows that at a local level, much content is reworked, adjusted and repackaged for local consumption; opportunities abound to influence that process.

Ultimately the issue is all about people – people who work in media making decisions. They have human values, have needs to be recognised and appreciated for what they do, and they are producing content for other people, people with disabilities. The primary focus in Australia is the people: making the millions of deaf and blind real customers with needs, preferences and buying power; making the production managers who take the extra step to secure access features feel like they are making a difference and are being acknowledged in public; making the politician realise that small steps at a local level, setting access levels at international benchmarks and talking to consumers will deliver more access at very little cost; making disability groups work together, combining their purchasing power, realising that access providers cover both blind and deaf needs in one product.

The media empire may be very much a global one, but to administer the empire and to profit from it, you need people on the ground. Ultimately those people think local, live in a local society and derive their rewards from those around them. That is the essential key to more access.

Alex Varley is CEO of Media Access Australia (MAA), an Australian not-for-profit organisation working to develop media access for disabled people, particularly through subtitling and audio description. MAA collaborates internationally with consumer and advocacy organisations, as well as suppliers and industry representatives, and works closely with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, broadcasters, government and disability organisations and access companies.