Abstract
For decades, different international guidelines on the field of audio description (AD) have been edited and supposedly followed by practitioners. There is general agreement on what should be included in terms of form, movement, colour, sound, perspective, and supporting information. According to all the guidelines, the style of audio description should be objective, not interpretative, although they do not specify what they mean by “objectivity”. These guidelines are based on the fact that receivers interpret the work of art themselves. However, this idea is unconvincing, as the blind and partially sighted receivers are not on the same level as the sighted viewer in terms of visual and information selection. Moreover, the guidelines do not focus on the different strategies to create AD. This ambiguity is also reflected in the treatment of subjectivity and creativity, as they do not provide any clear definition and are untrustworthy, since they introduce subjective techniques while recommending being always objective. This incongruence, together with the view of art education at the centre of cultural mediation and accessibility nowadays, and its influence on access projects and AD programmes across Europe and beyond, is the base of this proposal. We aim to explore both the comprehensive role of subjectivity and creativity in the guidelines and some of the new trends on AD, such as metaphorical, synesthetic, with interpretative voices, and poetic in our museums, thanks to our practical research and practice during the past decade. This way, we may have a broader and more specific understanding of what their real subjective and aesthetic experience is.
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1 Guidelines on Audio Description
Literature reviews play a very important role as a basis for all types of research, especially those dealing with novel and non-standardised practices, as they can be used for knowledge development, creation of new guidelines, improvement of practice, etc. AD is a translation of images into words that aims to help those with a visual impairment to construct a mental image of what they cannot see (Salzhauer and Sobol, 2003). While there is no international standard for the development of AD in any of its fields of application, there are guidelines and recommendations documents produced by different bodies and associations at national level. Most of them deal with video AD, whether for television, film or DVD, but there are also specific recommendations for other fields, including museums and the performing arts.
In the United States, there are general guidelines with sections dedicated to the different fields of application (television, dance, theatre and museums), and the same is true in the United Kingdom, where there are guidelines specific to the television context and others dedicated exclusively to the museum and historical heritage field. The latter are called Museums, galleries and heritage sites: improving access for blind and partially sighted people and have been developed by the RNIB (RNIB & Vocal Eyes, 2003) and the company Vocal Eyes. They include general measures for improving accessibility in museums, exhibitions and historical heritage sites, as well as specific recommendations for the development of audio-descriptive guides for these environments.
Various authors (Rai et al., 2010; Remael, 2005; Vercauteren, 2007) have analysed international standards on AD. For example, Vercauteren (2007) published research suggesting that it would be interesting to create a European AD standard, which has been partly carried out in the different ADLAB projects at European level: in 2011, the ADLAB project (Audio Description: Lifelong Access for the Blind) was created with the aim of defining and creating effective and reliable educational guidelines on the practice of audio description to provide access to most audiovisual products (ADLAB Project, 2019). Although there are numerous general guidelines on AD, there are none that specifically address a particular resource or category.
These guidelines are based on the fact that the recipients arrive at their own interpretations, under the protection of the most objective AD. However, this idea is not very convincing, as the visually impaired receiver is not on the same level as the sighted viewer in terms of visual and information selection, nor can they have the same tools for accessing information: Many blind people prefer other more multisensory ways of accessing visual information.
Eisner’s perspective (2002) underscores that the primary objective of art education programmes should be the cultivation of learners’ ability to experience aesthetics in their everyday lives. He emphasises that such aesthetic perception necessitates the capacity to slow down the process of perception, allowing for a meticulous examination and appreciation of visual qualities. It involves the active search for qualitative connections and a heightened awareness of the experiences they evoke. This viewpoint on art education is closely aligned with cultural mediation, described as the educational approach involving the acquisition and negotiation of knowledge related to the arts, social phenomena, and scientific subjects. This is achieved through interactions, reactions, and creative responses. These perspectives collectively stress the significance of individual, subjective experiences, creativity, and dialogue within the realms of museums and art education.
However, subjectivity has been a point of contention within the domain of AD, particularly due to the inconsistency between various guidelines. Some advocate for a neutral or objective approach, while others argue in favour of more subjective descriptions, which have shown benefits for certain blind and partially sighted (BPS) visitors. For instance, Spanish, American, and French AD guidelines tend to favour objectivity, even within the context of visual arts. In contrast, British guidelines indicate that some BPS visitors prefer subjective descriptions when visiting museums (AENOR, 2005; Morisset & Gonant, 2008; RNIB & Vocal Eyes, 2003; Salzhauer Axel et al., 1996).
The discourse on subjectivity extends to the analysis of literary ekphrasis and narration in silent films and the performing arts, which serve as precursors to AD. Within the realm of film AD, various perspectives emerge. Benecke and Dosch (2004) suggested detailed physical descriptions instead of explicitly conveying the emotions of characters. In contrast, Vercauteren and Orero (2013) argued in favour of using emotional language, particularly for describing universal facial expressions. Kruger and Orero (2010) advocated the use of audio narration (AN) with some deviation from strict fidelity.
The exploration of subjectivity has also become a subject of investigation in the field of reception studies for AD. Research related to theatre suggests that audiences tend to respond positively to subjective ADs (Udo & Fels, 2009; Udo et al., 2010). In the realm of film (Walczak & Fryer, 2017), findings indicate that creative ADs may enhance the sense of “presence”, creating a more immersive film experience, and ADs employing emotional language can elicit stronger emotional responses (Ramos, 2016).
Concerning AD for visual art, there exists a need to convey both clear and ambivalent visual cues, including the sensations they evoke in viewers. Neves (2012) emphasised the necessity of incorporating more subjective interpretations to enable visually impaired individuals to experience visual art at a level comparable to sighted individuals. Notably, several corpus-based studies have demonstrated the presence of subjective language in AD for visual art (Lima & Magalhães, 2013; Luque Colmenero, 2016, 2020; Soler Gallego, 2018).
In the following section, we will present a summary of the most important guidelines followed in AD practice in the UK and Spain, as these are two countries with guidelines.
1.1 Guidelines in the UK
In the UK, the project Talking Images: museums, galleries and heritage sites carried out by the RNIB in collaboration with the AD company Vocal Eyes resulted in the production of a guide entitled The Talking Images Guide. Museums, galleries and heritage sites: improving access for blind and partially sighted people (RNIB and Vocal Eyes, 2003), which includes measures to improve accessibility in these environments and specific recommendations for the production of AD guides. This document recommends following a series of guidelines which are summarised below:
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Involve people with DV in the development process.
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Use accessible technology.
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Link the AD guide to the other services offered by the museum.
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Plan the maintenance and updating of the guides at the beginning of the project.
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Include the general description of the museum, the duration and theme, the instructions for use and movement, and the information that forms part of the written text of the exhibition.
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Go from the general to the specific.
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Include the following specific elements: characteristics of the space, size of the element and type of support, particularities of each work, style, material and technique, impact of the work at first sight and the details that contribute to that impact.
Regarding the level of interpretation of the work, these guidelines state that a AD that is too objective and focussed on the location of the visual elements hinders understanding, while one that is more evaluative and interpretative is more attractive to the visitor and helps to maintain their attention, as it reflects the process of contemplation of the work and helps to build a sense of it, for example through elements such as colour. In the publication, there is a comparison between two ADs. These two versions were presented to a group of visually impaired people to gauge their impressions. The first version focuses on form, without interpreting it. If we analyse the tools they use to describe the shapes, we realise that they rely heavily on the elements that have already been described, i.e., some elements are understood in comparison with others, which is a kind of comparison or analogy at a figurative level. The second version includes a higher interpretative level. The first version was much more difficult to understand for the group, who also thought it was the longer of the two descriptions, although it is almost half as short.
We can relate this idea to the abstraction of the work, which requires common elements in order to be understood. In addition, the second description was considered more immersive, providing more visual information about the work. The use of colours and qualifying words, such as adjectives, was considered helpful in creating a mental image and thinking about the meaning of the work. They also felt that, after listening to it, they had something positive to talk about. As for the analogies used, although we also found comparisons with elements already described, the most striking for our research and, according to the results obtained, for the users were those that compare, as recommended by Snyder in the guidelines of the American Council of the Blind (Snyder, 2010), common and everyday elements with parts of the visual work, which transfer the experience of the work to the users’ life experience.
1.2 Guidelines in Spain
In Spain, there are specific guidelines (AENOR, 2005) for the preparation of AD guides, which are set out below for comparison with those in the Anglo-Saxon context. They should contain the following:
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Instructions for handling the electronic device.
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Safety information (emergency exits), warning of places, or situations that may constitute a physical risk.
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Description of the space, including the following:
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Location of the entrance
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Location of the exit
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Circulation route throughout the visitable space
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Location of useful services, such as toilets, cafeteria, and shop
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Location of accessible materials
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Location of floor plans and other raised or tactilely significant information
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Description of objects or environments, including:
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Location of the placards with their data
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Location of each piece within the ensemble of which it forms part.
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Use of concepts that are not exclusively visual, highlighting features whose sensory input channel is other senses.
When tactile access is possible, the AD guide should direct the exploration in a simple and orderly manner so that the BPS person can grasp the most significant aspects of the object, and when this is not possible, as is the case with pictorial works, the description should focus on the most significant data for capturing the work, expressly avoiding personal interpretations. The description of each object or environment should contain the appropriate terminology and include the most significant aspects.
The evolution of a field as new as AD is very rapid and changing and the AENOR standard does not cover all the fields in which it can be applied, so it is often the criterion of each museum, department or audio describer that prevails in AD guides. On the other hand, the standard does not make any direct reference to the use of figurative meaning, subjective language or analogies or metaphors, or even to language in general. It deals to a greater extent with the part related to accessibility and architectural barriers, be it the type of ramps or obstacles in the museum or the non-adaptation of its signs to Braille. It only alludes to the use of concepts that are not exclusively visual and features that have other senses as a sensory input channel, in a very similar way to the other guidelines we have analysed, which make translation through other senses their only general contribution to language.
2 Objective Versus Subjective Styles
All of these elements converge to give rise to what is termed the “objective” style. This term is used to describe AD that employs an objective language, focussing on informing about what can be seen without interpreting it. It is akin to a form of surface reading, emphasising what is overtly manifest (Kleege, 2016), or AD with a primary referential function whose purpose is to inform and describe (Bartolini & Manfredi, 2022).
The objective style aligns with the recommendations provided in existing guidelines for creating AD for visual art. Notably, Neves (2016) identifies three potential approaches, which are the objective, narrative, and interpretive styles, but only elaborates on the objective style. Furthermore, the objective style was identified as the preferred AD style by users in a study conducted by the RNIB and Vocal Eyes before the creation of their set of guidelines (RNIB & Vocal Eyes, 2003). More recently, a study conducted by Hutchinson and Eardley (2020), focussed on context and process, indicated that this style corresponds to the approach advocated and followed by professional audio describers.
It is true that, in general, and especially in the early AD guidelines, subjective judgements were not welcome and objectivity was favoured to avoid any manipulation or patronising attitude towards the public. However, it is not always clear what constitutes a subjective judgement or what kind of interpretation is more objective and could be included in the AD (Mazur & Chmiel, 2012). Udo and Fels (2009) argue that objective interpretation is impossible. Hyks admits that AD is always subjective and that, whether there is agreement on certain basic principles, audio describers will always see things differently and express it differently, from country to country, from company to company and also from person to person (2005). Corpus-based studies examining audio description (AD) for visual art have also unveiled less common approaches and characteristics (Lima & Magalhães, 2013; Soler Gallego, 2019, 2021; Luque Colmenero, 2020, 2021; Luque Colmenero & Soler Gallego, 2020, 2022) that have the potential to enhance accessibility in the realm of visual arts.
In the subsequent section, we will introduce some of these subjective styles, which are gradually gaining traction in museums across Europe and around the world. We will also outline their primary features and provide examples that illustrate their utility in various contexts.
3 New Audio Description Styles
In the realm of art and culture, museums have evolved into more than just repositories of historical artefacts; they have become metaphoric landscapes where the past and present merge into immersive experiences. In this section, we will present new styles of AD we can find in museums across Europe. They are metaphoric, gist, poetic, synesthetic, and interpretative voices, together with an explanation of their main features, which aim to prove their usefulness in different contexts. As these subjective styles continue to develop in museums across Europe and the world, we will delve into their essence by providing examples that underscore their profound usefulness in accessible cultural contexts for BPS people.
3.1 Metaphorical Styles
In a previous analysis (Luque Colmenero, 2016), we were able to determine that metaphor is used in the AD guides of art museums with the communicative function of transferring through the linguistic code that cannot be perceived through the visual channel. We compiled and analysed a corpus of approximately 35,000 words consisting of the intersemiotic translation text segments found in the AD guides of four museums, namely the Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and the MoMA, the Whitney Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum of New York in the United States. The results of this study indicated that metaphors, and especially novel, direct and deliberate metaphors, were widely used throughout the corpus.
An example of a deliberate metaphor found in the corpus was “the face like a wild mask”. It was part of the AD of The Three Dancers, by Picasso, taken from the Tate Modern AD guide, and an example of a non-deliberate metaphor in the corpus is “soft white light”, from the AD of “Home” by Mona Hatoum, also from the Tate Modern. General appearance of direct and deliberate metaphor in the academic genre is only 0.1%; in fiction, 0.4%; in conversation, less than 0.1%; and in press, 0.4% (Herrmann, 2013, p. 101). According to our analysis, more than 5.14% of the language used in the corpus is made up of metaphors of this type. The analysis also showed that higher levels of abstraction and conceptuality of the source text seem to be connected with higher percentages of deliberate metaphors in the target text. We have been able to show that metaphors are widely used across Spanish and European museums’ AD nowadays (Luque Colmenero & Soler Gallego, 2020).
3.2 Gist Style
Another minority approach more and more used in museum AD is the one we have named “gist” style (Soler Gallego and Luque Colmenero, 2022). It has been developed by Claire Bartoli, a writer and actress who is blind, and who audio describes for art museums in Paris. This is a minority AD style from the point of view of selection and quantity of information (attention/salience), as well as the structure and connections (constitution/gestalt) built in the AD (Soler Gallego and Luque Colmenero, 2022).
Bartoli’s AD of Murs de peintures (Walls of Paintings) by Daniel Buren for the AD guide of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is an enumeration of shapes, directions, and colours:
Black, white, black, white, black square.
Small red, white, red, white, red square.
Black square.
Large orange, white, orange, white orange, white, orange square.
Small blue, white, blue, white, blue rectangle.
Grey square.
Red rectangle.
It conveys the composition without using any lexis related to space and location. Instead, these formal components are implicitly indicated by means of the sequence in which they are enunciated through language.
3.3 Poetic Style
BPS visitors to museums can also experience the so-called poetic style. De Coster and Mühleis’ propose that, instead of explaining the meaning of the ambivalent signs, audio describers could find in words the same “sensorial ambiguity” that can be found in sound or touch. This different approach could be addressed as “soundpainting”, in line with the ekphrastic tradition. Ekphrasis, which Orero and Pujol (2007: 49) define as “a literary figure that provides the graphic and often dramatic description of a painting, a relief or other work of art”, can include elements that can be considered objective, whereas other elements are completely subjective.
However, if the BPS person cannot have direct access to the work itself, they could also have access to an “alternative work of art”. People who cannot see the work of art will not be able to relate to it as sighted people would do unless they gain access to the explicit and the implicit meanings of the piece. Furthermore, art is expression, and conveying the expressive nature of any work of art through words alone may be truly challenging. If only explicit signs can be expressed through words, then ways must be found to convey the feelings and sensations that are only invoked or raised through feelings. Poems, songs, literary works, etc. are widely used in different museums to fill this gap.
3.4 Synesthetic Style
Synaesthesia deals with a “confusion” between the bodily senses, although “exchange” between concepts and senses fits better within our area of study. Synesthetic metaphors, which have also been studied within cognitive approaches to metaphor (Steen et al., 2010), recreate a sensation through a sense that, while being alien to it, helps to understand it through body experience. The adjective “fluid”, related to both a tactile and a visual experience, is introduced to describe the physical appearance of certain figures or the technique in an AD.
In a figurative work AD used during a multisensory visit with BPS people at the Alhambra of Granada, Spain, “Diego de Mendoza” (Luque Colmenero and Soler Gallego, 2020), the materials and the light depicted in the work are translated through contrasting synesthetic comparisons: “we can imagine the hardness and softness of the smooth marbles”, “the warmth of the light on the stone” and “the brilliant coldness of the rings”. The sense of touch serves here to translate Titian’s use of light and his realistic technique. In another figurative work, “La salida de los moriscos”, we find another example of a synesthetic metaphor built upon the touch-vision connection: “they offer a sensation of warmth, of powerful sunshine.” This is directly related to the guidelines of Art Beyond Sight (Salzhauer Axel et al., 2003), which recommend the intersensorial translation of the artwork components and, specifically, suggest using tactile sensations to describe the surface of sculptural pieces and light in paintings. The synesthetic metaphor therefore contributes to creating a multisensory experience of the exhibit. This, according to a recent reception study by Eardley et al. (2016), seems to help BPS museum visitors create autobiographical memories, which are for these authors the end product that the visitor is seeking.
This is another example:
Use of light and shadow in a painting can be explained by referring to the feeling one has when sitting in front of a window on a sunny day. The parts of the face and body that feel the warmth are said to be in the light. Those parts not being warmed by the sun are said to be in shade or shadow. (Salzauer et al., 2003, p. 8)
We can even go one step further and consider ADs created with a “sensological” point of view. Carlos Boyad is a researcher who has developed a field called “sensology”. It is an approach designed to help people improve their quality of life by learning to perceive, express, organise and use their non-verbal world more effectively, which has an impact on intelligence, creativity and emotional balance. This approach also emphasises the importance of nurturing and preparing the brain to assimilate knowledge and focuses on fine-tuning sensory capacities. This has been proved to be effective with BPS visitors to museums (Soler and Luque, 2022).
Therefore, the aim must always be for the BPS person to perceive the whole of the work’s contents and, furthermore, its artistic nature as previously stated, that is, to feel the inter-aesthetic tensions created in it. To appreciate a painting, therefore, is not only to see the different formal elements that compose it but to perceive and to be moved of the artisticity of the same one lived through the inter-aesthetic tensions.
3.5 Interpretative Voicing
We have already referred to the term “soundpainting” (Neves, 2012), but it does not only refer to poetry. It also brings together multiple sound “textures”. Carefully chosen words and a careful direction of the voice to guarantee adequate tone of voice, rhythm and speech modulation can all work together with specific sound effects and music to provide emotions. In many ways, soundpainting goes against the grain of conventional museum AD, since it is openly subjective and interpretative in nature. By trying to capture and recreate artistic subtleties, it might be seen as a form of transcreation, particularly because it aims to “substitute” the original form by an equivalent and yet new art form.
Despite the fact that soundpainting may be interpretative or subjective in nature, it can still be loyal to the original piece of work in its effort to convey the messages and emotions of the first through new modes of expression (Neves, 2012). Soundpainting can inspire creative AD design to offer BPS users quality experiences.
4 Conclusion
In recent times, many studies have highlighted the complexity of encapsulating AD in a single typology that satisfies all the needs and expectations of users. Nowadays, an increasingly significant debate is taking place around AD techniques and accessibility. This dialogue has explored various dimensions of AD, such as the multiplicity of approaches (Soler Gallego, 2018) and its relationship with subjectivity and creativity (Luque Colmenaro & Soler Gallego, 2020), among other aspects.
We would need to carry out research focussed on reception, where BPS individuals evaluate and analyse the utility and effectiveness of AD with a subjectivity approach. These reception studies would offer a more accurate insight into how AD is perceived and experienced in practice, validating its real utility. We strongly believe museums, companies and professionals have to explore new ways of applying AD, from established guidelines into innovative and creative approaches.
Within the realm of AD for art, particularly when considering subjective and creatively driven approaches, the integration of technology may seem tangential at best. These methodologies prioritise nuanced interpretation and imaginative expression over standardised techniques or technological interventions. Consequently, the incorporation of technology in this type of AD often assumes a peripheral role, if it exists at all, as it does not align with the fundamental principles of subjectivity and creativity inherent in these processes. Rather than being perceived as a burgeoning trend or heralding a future direction, scholarly inquiry is directed towards understanding the intricate dynamics of human perception and interpretation within the context of AD. Thus, technology occupies a marginal, if not negligible, position within these discussions, as the emphasis remains firmly on the human experience of both BPS people and describers and the diverse perspectives that contribute to the multifaceted understanding of art.
After having explored the role of subjectivity and creativity in AD guidelines together with the current trends in research and practice, we can point at the need for a balance between objective and subjective AD, as some BPS visitors may prefer more interpretative and evaluative descriptions (Walczak & Fryer, 2017), and as museum education is adapting to new perspectives of enjoyment and to a wider and more profound approach to human rights and accessibility. This aligns with Hutchinson and Eardley’s proposition from a few years back, which posited that the evolution of museum AD might involve offering a variety of AD styles, such as multiple shorter descriptions, or creative impressions (2019) and with Neves (2012), who has widely debated the inclusion of subjective and interpretive styles in AD. Also, the lack of consensus on what constitutes subjective judgement and the challenges in defining objective interpretation in AD may lead to more open approaches to AD.
We as academia have to present a strong will to carry out a further development of guidelines. There are recent on-going investigations leading to this. For example, Bisier (2023) has recently analysed the pertinence of the Spanish UNE 153020 norm. Since its publication in 2005, this standard has remained the only official document in Spanish regulating AD. However, despite significant advancements in the inclusion of these communities in the cultural sphere, the standard has not been updated in over seventeen years. With the implementation of the new General Audiovisual Communication Law in 2022, Spanish government mandates that audio described films comply with the quality standards outlined in the UNE standard. This has prompted a reevaluation of the document, aiming to provide a constructive review. However, we have to take to account that this document mostly deals with film AD, and the question should not be whether it has to be updated, as the author explains, but adapted to other types of AD, such as museum and performing arts. We understand new documents have to be created, not only prescriptive ones, but descriptive and practical texts that reflect the variety of experiences we can find in our increasingly accessible and multisensory museums.
Additionally, the significance of individual, subjective experiences, creativity, and dialogue in museums and art education is key, and we present insights into the evolving field of AD and the potential for enhancing accessibility and inclusivity in the realm of visual arts. Different styles of AD, including metaphorical, immersive, synesthetic, interpretative voices, and poetic styles have the potential to enhance the subjective and aesthetic experience of museum visitors.
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This chapter is based upon work from COST Action CA19142—Leading Platform for European Citizens, Industries, Academia and Policymakers in Media Accessibility (LEAD-ME) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).
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Colmenero, M.O.L. (2024). Subjectivity and Creativity Versus Audio Description Guidelines. In: Marcus-Quinn, A., Krejtz, K., Duarte, C. (eds) Transforming Media Accessibility in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60049-4_3
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