Back to Results
Cover image of Closed Captioning
Cover image of Closed Captioning
Share this Title:

Closed Captioning

Subtitling, Stenography, and the Digital Convergence of Text with Television

Gregory J. Downey

Publication Date
Binding Type

This engaging study traces the development of closed captioning—a field that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s from decades-long developments in cinematic subtitling, courtroom stenography, and education for the deaf. Gregory J. Downey discusses how digital computers, coupled with human mental and physical skills, made live television captioning possible. Downey's survey includess the hidden information workers who mediate between live audiovisual action and the production of visual track and written records. His work examines communication technology, human geography, and the place of labor in a...

This engaging study traces the development of closed captioning—a field that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s from decades-long developments in cinematic subtitling, courtroom stenography, and education for the deaf. Gregory J. Downey discusses how digital computers, coupled with human mental and physical skills, made live television captioning possible. Downey's survey includess the hidden information workers who mediate between live audiovisual action and the production of visual track and written records. His work examines communication technology, human geography, and the place of labor in a technologically complex and spatially fragmented world.

Illustrating the ways in which technological development grows out of government regulation, education innovation, professional profit-seeking, and social activism, this interdisciplinary study combines insights from several fields, among them the history of technology, human geography, mass communication, and information studies.

Reviews

Reviews

Downey’s book provides a through explanation of how the technology developed, and after reading Closed Captioning, you will never again take the technology for granted and you will clearly understand its role as a communication medium.

Downey's historical approach sheds light on the origins of innovations born of practical necessity that are driving current media trends.

An impressive and ambitious account of the history of the technology, geography, labor, and politics of three speech-to-text systems—subtitling, closed captioning for television, and court reporting. It is original, well written and researched, and an important book.

About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
400
ISBN
9780801893438
Illustration Description
22 line drawings
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Invisible Speech-to-Text Systems
Part One: Turning Speech into Text in Three Different Contexts
1. Subtitling Film for the Cinema Audience
2. Captioning Television for the

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Invisible Speech-to-Text Systems
Part One: Turning Speech into Text in Three Different Contexts
1. Subtitling Film for the Cinema Audience
2. Captioning Television for the Deaf Population
3. Stenographic Reporting for the Court System
Part Two: Convergence in the Speech-to-Text Industry
4. Realtime Captioning for News, Education, and the Court
5. Public Interest, Market Failure, and Captioning Regulation
6. Privatized Geographies of Captioning and Court Reporting
Conclusion: The Value of Turning Speech into Text
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index

Author Bio
Featured Contributor

Gregory J. Downey

Gregory J. Downey is an associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication and the School of Library & Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography, 1850–1950.
Resources

Additional Resources