Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Live Captioning Accuracy in Spanish-Language Newscasts in the United States

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Media, Learning and Assistive Environments (HCII 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12769))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 1186 Accesses

Abstract

In addition to English-speaking networks, the United States has a number of broadcasters that target the Hispanic community by offering their full programming in Spanish. According to the closed captioning regulations in place, they need to provide closed captions to their audiences, which have to be acceptable in terms of completeness, placement, synchronicity and accuracy. This paper provides the main findings of the first scholarly accuracy assessment conducted in the United States for Spanish-language live closed captions. Taking the national newscasts aired by two major Spanish-speaking networks as the focus of study, this article reports on their accuracy and reduction rates, and provides a detailed account of the number, type and severity of the errors encountered. Overall, our assessment revealed improvable accuracy levels, which were mainly caused by omissions of relevant information in combination with an increased presence of minor errors in the form of misspellings, punctuation errors and technology-related issues.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Respeaking is usually known as voice writing in the US.

  2. 2.

    Despite contacting both broadcasters several times, we obtained no satisfactory response and could not confirm how the closed captions that we analyzed had been produced.

  3. 3.

    The NER model defines accuracy as follows [23]: “excellent” (AR above 99.5%), “very good” (AR 99%–99.49%), “good” (AR 98.5%–98.99%), “acceptable” (AR 98%–98.49%) and “substandard” (AR below 98%).

References

  1. Greco, G.M.: The nature of accessibility studies. J. Audiov. Transl. 1, 205–232 (2018). https://doi.org/10.47476/jat.v1i1.51

  2. US Census Bureau: Language Spoken at Home (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  3. US Census Bureau: Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Wilkinson, K.T.: Spanish-Language Television in the United States: Fifty Years of Development. Routledge, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Report and Order, Declaratory Ruling, and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Closed Captioning of Video Programming (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Australian Communications and Media Authority: Broadcasting Services (Television Captioning) Standard 2013 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission: Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2016–435 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  9. AENOR: Subtitulado para personas sordas y personas con discapacidad auditiva (UNE 153010) (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Canadian Association of the Deaf: Understanding User Responses to Live Closed Captioning in Canada - Summary Report (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Twenty-First Century Captioning Disability and Rehabilitation Research Project (Captioning DRRP): Comments on Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. et al. Petition for Declaratory Ruling and/or Ruling Making on Live Closed Captioning Quality Metrics and the Use of Automatic Speech Recognition Technologies (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Reid, B.E.: Survey Report by Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf, Hearing Loss Association of America, Technology Access Program at Gallaudet University (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  13. English Language Broadcasters Group: EBG Report on Efforts to Improve the Quality of Closed Captioning (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Romero-Fresco, P.: Quality in live subtitling: the reception of respoken subtitles in the UK. In: Remael, A., Orero, P., Carroll, M. (eds.) Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility at the Crossroads, pp. 111–131. Rodopi, Amsterdam (2012). https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401207812_008

  15. Matthews, L.: Getting the full picture? Viewers’ experiences of television subtitling (2015). https://doi.org/10.7748/en.15.10.12.s17

  16. Jordan, A.B., Albright, A., Branner, A., Sullivan, J.: The State of Closed Captioning Services in the United States. An Assessment of Quality, Availability, and Use (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Fresno, N.: Closed captioning quality in the information society: the case of the American newscasts reshown online. Univers. Access Inf. Soc. (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Apone, T., Botkin, B., Brooks, M., Goldberg, L.: Caption Accuracy Metrics Project Research into Automated Error Ranking of Real-time Captions in Live Television News Programs, pp. 1–16 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Romero-Fresco, P.: Subtitling Through Speech Recognition Respeaking. St. Jerome Publishing, Manchester (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Romero-Fresco, P., Martínez, J.: Accuracy rate in live subtitling. The NER model. In: Díaz-Cintas, J., Baños-Piñero, R. (eds.) Audiovisual Translation in a Global Context: Mapping an Ever-changing Landscape, pp. 28–50. Palgrave MacMillan, London (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Ofcom: Measuring the quality of live subtitling (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission: Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2019–308 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Romero-Fresco, P.: Accessing communication: the quality of live subtitles in the UK. Lang. Commun. 49, 56–69 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2016.06.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Fresno, N.: Of bad hombres and nasty women; the quality of the live closed captioning in the 2016 US final presidential debate. Perspect. Stud. Transl. Theory Pract. 27, 350–366 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2018.1526960

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Fresno, N., Sepielak, K., Krawczyk, M.: Football for all: the quality of the live closed captioning in the Super Bowl LII. Univers. Access Inf. Soc. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-020-00734-7

  26. Fresno, N., Romero-Fresco, P., Rico-Vázquez, M.: The quality of live subtitling on Spanish television. In: Media for All 8 Conference. University of Stockholm, Stockholm (2019)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

This research was conducted within the framework of the research group GALMA (Galician Observatory for Media Accessibility).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville, TX, 78520, USA

    Nazaret Fresno

Authors
  1. Nazaret Fresno
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nazaret Fresno .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Margherita Antona

  2. University of Crete and Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Constantine Stephanidis

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Fresno, N. (2021). Live Captioning Accuracy in Spanish-Language Newscasts in the United States. In: Antona, M., Stephanidis, C. (eds) Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Media, Learning and Assistive Environments. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12769. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78095-1_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78095-1_19

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-78094-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-78095-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation