The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) recently launched their Captioning Matters campaign, which was created teach people about the importance of captions and to campaign for the deaf and hard of hearing who deserve “accurate, understandable and timely captions.”
Captioning Matters will serve as a resource center and an online advocacy strategy. Specifically, the NCRA says that the campaign will educate individuals on the use of captions and the benefits they serve to the public. The campaign will also educate the public on just how many people work to create captions, from the captioner to the broadcasting service provider. The campaign will focus on the website of the same name, CaptioningMatters.com, which will be run by the NCRA.
CaptioningMatters.com will operate as a repository of the latest news in captioning, including regulatory and legislative updates, as well as news and other topics of interest. The website will prominently feature the NCRA’s captioning best practices as to educate individuals on the importance of quality captioning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
The NCRA’s Captioning Matters campaign will therefore be a practical tool, not only for educating people on the importance of captioning, but for those individuals who are involved in providing captions. Other benefits of captioning will also be featured in the campaign. For example, captioning has been shown to raise the reading level of schoolchildren and to help English-language learning individuals.
As part of the Captioning Matters campaign, the NCRA will:
- Encourage the adoption of the NCRA’s Best Practices by broadcasters, community organizations and other service providers
- Provide access to advocacy tools that can be used to educate and encourage individuals to contact broadcasters and other service providers and provide them with information on the Captioning Matters campaign
- Create an online resource center where individuals can find information about legislative and regulatory updates and information about captioning services