Teenager urges MPs to make closed captions mandatory on media videos

Thursday, 2 June 2022

Student activist Hope Cotton has created a petition requesting media companies use closed captions on videos. To activate English closed captions on this video, click the CC button on the video toolbar.

Imagine sitting down to watch a movie with your family only to discover it has no captions, and you have no idea what is going on.

Instead of a fun family night, you spend the night reading a book.

That was the recent reality for Hope Cotton, 17, who was born deaf in one ear and with severe tinnitus in the other.

Although Hope “gets by” with hearing aids and by lip-reading, she says it is not easy.

What she puts up with is what 880,000 New Zealanders affected by hearing loss deal with every day, she says.

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Student activist Hope Cotton is petitioning Parliament to require media producers to use closed captions on videos.

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Watching television and videos is a source of frustration and Hope believes every New Zealander should have equal access to media content.

Jazz Thornton won Dancing With the Stars but Hope Cotton was unable to watch it with her family, due to a lack of captions.

The St Oran’s College student and Upper Hutt resident is petitioning Parliament for legal captioning standards for all New Zealand television and media organisations, including Stuff.

“It’s absolutely fundamental that news is accessible to everyone. We should all have equal access to information and closed captioning is a crucial tool for this.”

Unlike subtitles (often used for foreign films and interviews of foreign language speakers), closed captions are intended for people who cannot hear.

They are the transcription of dialogue, sound effects and all other relevant audio information.

Failure to have legal captioning requirements puts New Zealand at risk of falling behind other OECD nations, Hope says. In Australia, Britain, and the US, closed captioning is required by law.

Sejin Bae discusses some of the benefits of learning NZSL.

“We like to think of New Zealand as a progressive country, and in many ways it is, but at the moment we’re cutting off a whole community from information, entertainment and education.”

She points out that news organisations are also missing out on 880,000 potential subscribers and their advertising dollar.

Stuff's chief product officer Ben Haywood says “making our journalism accessible to all New Zealanders’ is a high priority.

“With that in mind, we’re upgrading our systems to make it possible to release accessibility features, including closed captions, more quickly. It's a complex project so we don’t have firm dates yet, but we’ll keep people posted.”

Raised in a hearing family in Upper Hutt with her mother and father, Lisa and Paul, and twin younger siblings, Charlie and Grace, Hope is learning New Zealand Sign Language.

Hope Cotton is thinking of pursuing a career in journalism.

Mandatory closed captioning would be “life-changing” for her.

“Just the other day it was advertised that the Dancing with the Stars final was going to be captioned. My family and I were so excited to be able to watch something live together for once, but then it wasn’t, and we couldn’t.” She ended up reading a book.

School would be much easier with captioning too, says Hope.

“Without legal captioning standards, the videos we watch in class aren’t required to be captioned. Even if the video does happen to be captioned, I often have to watch it up to five times to just try and get a sense of what is happening because of the inaccuracy of auto-generated captions.”

Although Hope acknowledges these inaccuracies can be amusing, she warns of the dangers that auto-generated captions produce.

“They might say something like ‘share masks’ instead of ‘wear masks’ when talking about Covid regulations…It is only through quality captioning that Deaf people can navigate an increasingly digital world.”

Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni, says a Ministry for Disabled People being launched in July would help address the issue.

“Alongside this we intend to introduce new accessibility legislation and will be rolling out the Enabling Good Lives Approach nationally. We have backed this up with over $1 billion of investment for disability-related initiatives in Budget 2022.”

Bringing about change will be a slow process, Sepuloni warns.

“The Government’s commitment is to a gradual realisation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy. While it might prioritise equal access to information for those with disabilities, achieving this may take some time.

The Minister for Broadcasting and Media, Hon Kris Faafoi, did not respond to requests for comment.

A Year 13 student, Hope is considering a career in journalism.

“I want to find a way to make a positive difference to the world, whether that be through law, policy or journalism I’m not yet sure. But I do know I want to push for change.”

She has already had one win, with the school agreeing to video assemblies.

Principal Jeanette Duffy says Hope has had a positive impact, establishing a sign language club and by being an advocate for the hearing impaired.

“I think we're all taken aback that New Zealand is one of the few countries where closed captioning is not required of media.”

Hope’s petition to create legal captioning standards for New Zealand has more than 500 signatures.