Listening to Voters Who Cannot Hear
BY Alan Rosenblatt | Thursday, May 17 2007
While all of the candidates are using the internet to talk to the voters, some are using it to listen to them. And others are changing the way they talk with voters because they listened to them. That is the democratizing power of the internet.
For example, we tend to think that websites such as YouTube help broaden the reach of democratic communication (note the little "d"). More people can and do learn about the candidates as a result of the internet. And YouTube helps them learn through video, a medium that all of us are very comfortable using.
This is great for enabling the voter to better exercise his/her sovereign power to vote, speak their mind, assemble in groups, publish opinions, and petition the government. But what about those left behind?
We often talk about the digital divide--those who have internet access and those who do not. This remains a hurdle to leap in the evolution towards a fully informed electorate. But there are many online who are still on the other side of the divide. Those who are deaf.
While the blind can listen to the audio of most political videos, and get the gist of the message, without closed captioning or a transcript, most political video, especially speeches, are useless to the deaf.
Until now, none of the candidates were using closed captioning on their web videos. So Tom Faar, a Gulf War Vet now working at Galludet, asked the candidates to add closed captioning to their videos. Within a week of the request, the Obama campaign has become the first to do so.
While they are still working out the kinks to ensure that it meets standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the campaign has begun working with Project Read On to add closed captioning to campaign videos on Obama TV and YouTube.
Hopefully, we will see more of this on the other candidate videos. For now, it makes me smile to see another small step for democracy and hopefully for several more of these steps in the near future.