Honor the Growth of Subtitling with Quality and Integrity

Subtitles allow us to appreciate, promote and share culture across continents.

Films with subtitles and captions give everyone equal access to enjoy all the great content that is produced around the world and guarantee equal opportunities to people with disabilities.

In an ever more globalized world, subtitling and captioning is advancing and the number of subtitled and captioned programs is growing year on year. More and more, content producers and providers are making their content accessible worldwide.

And not only in the entertainment industry, of course, but also educational, corporate, e-learning, medical, social networks, in-house training, video games, streaming services, to name a few.

Subtitles are extremely important and should always be done with linguistic integrity at core.

It is the responsibility of the subtitler and captioner to have an in-depth understanding of all aspects of subtitling.

Not only should subtitles and captions be technically correct so as not to disturb the viewers comprehension and reading of the subtitles, but subtitlers also have an ethical and moral responsibility to posses cultural knowledge of what they are re-creating.

Subtitles cross linguistic and media barriers, in all industries of subtitling. We must honor the growth of subtitling and captioning with integrity, respect and quality.

About the author:

Kelly O’Donovan is the creator of GoSub.tv – An Education in the Art of Subtitling.

GoSub.tv specializes in the online training of subtitling, closed captioning and SDH.

She is also the creator of Jobs.GoSub.tv – A new online directory connecting qualified subtitlers and captioners with agencies and jobs.