Collaborative Media Accessibility: Insights from Media Accessibility Experts

Media accessibility services, and the related research, mainly focus on individuals with disabilities. As a consequence, they require a comprehensive understanding and acknowledgment of their needs and capabilities. In media accessibility research, there have been distinct turns: initially, the focus was on the end users, which subsequently led to numerous studies on comprehension, appreciation, and reception (Di Giovanni 2021). A significant turn, started a few years ago and still thriving, is related to collaborative and participatory practices involving media accessibility professionals at various levels: their skills, specialized training, the tools they utilize, their tasks and workflow. These topics are currently subjects of active debate worldwide, as there appears to be no homogeneous approach. After examining the training programs that are currently available, this paper presents the findings of a survey carried out with media access professionals in the European Union and the United Kingdom. The goal was to identify the competencies essential for accessibility professionals, delineate their responsibilities, detail the tools they use, and, most importantly, assess the involvement of individuals with different abilities in the entire process of designing, testing, and evaluating media accessibility services to shed light on the nature of collaborative media accessibility practices and processes.