This morning, reading JJ Purorro’s blog about his campaign to convince Netflix to include closed captioned movies offered on Netflix’s “Instant View” online rental service, which doesn’t offered the closed captioned versions. I commended him for setting up a Facebook campaign He pointed out a Facebook campaign to rally people to get Netflix to include captioned/subtitled movies in the Instant View streaming video service for the deaf/HoH subscribers. I was disappointed by Netflix CEO Rex Hastings for his ridiculous and ignorant comments about the accessibility and availability of technology to support people with disabilities, including the deaf/HoH people. You can follow the story about a Netflix shareholder who questioned Hastings on the lack of closed captioned videos in Netflix’s online streaming service at the annual shareholder meeting on May 29th, 2009.
The deaf and hard-of-hearing people have the right to reasonable accommodation and accessibility to available technologies in order to assist them in communicative matters in their lives. Closed captioning in television shows, movies and videos is a very important integral feature in everyday life of the deaf, crucially assisting them to understand what is being said and described on the screen while enjoying the same privilege as the hearing people can hear and enjoy likewise.
However, JJ Purorro, in his blog, stated that since his mother purchased a closed captioning box for the TV, his reading proficiency skyrocketed. This is a common saying within the deaf/HoH community: watching closed captioned (CC) shows/videos on TV would improve one’s reading proficiency. I remembered saying this for the same reason many years ago. Though, having later realized that watching shows or movies with CC should not be the sole factor in helping the deaf improve reading proficiency, I used to debate with a deaf friend at Gallaudet that relying on only CC shows/movies won’t improve English skills in writing and reading. I pointed out my experience in reading other materials while growing up in the pre-CC TV age.
Before the advent of closed captioning technology in the late 1970s and early 1980s and before my parents got me a closed captioning box in 1983 for our family TV, I grew up reading comic books, newspapers (Washington Post, Washington Times, local papers), Time, National Geographic and other magzines, and few of my parents’ books. Doing all these eventually improved my reading proficiency over the years. By 1985, TV networks were adding closed captioning to many primetime and news shows and I watched TV more than often, since captioned shows made viewing them more interesting or entertaining than the non-captioned shows, except for the crazy actions of professional wrestling or great sports games.
Going well into 1990s, I was still reading newspapers, magazines and books, and still maintaining my reading proficiency, notwithstanding the greater availability of captioned shows on network and cable TV and movies on videos. Reading these published materials fired my imagination or stroked my thinking in ways that CC shows and movies cannot even do. It opened me to the realm of many possibilities and different thinking.
On the other hand, when you’re watching a CC show or movie, you’re watching oral communication (dialogue) between peoples or narrative description of scenes or events to tell a story in a very visual, moving manner. These doesn’t quite fire your imagination in your mind since you’re watching a scene and reading captioned words at the same time, leaving little room to process any imagination or provoke any thinking in your mind. Ever wonder why these terms to describe people who are addicted to TV? Click here and scroll down to the title “Sensory Confusion”. Your mind is only engaged to the TV while viewing and that’s it. No imagination or thinking processed or provoked. I noticed these mental anomalies myself when I watched TV or movie with CC.
Closed captioning on TV can only help you understand what is being said and described on the screen, but not necessarily alone can improve your reading proficiency. So, do not rely totally on CC TV shows or movies in order to improve your reading skills. It may benefit only for those learning and understanding English for the first time and be more proficient with it in real life communication but not necessarily to learn all that from watching only TV for the rest of life. I would not be impressed with people who said that they got their English skills only from watching CC TV, it’s sad and pathetic. The English literature and language did not start out that way.
So read the books, fiction or non-fiction.
Read the newspapers.
Read the magazines or periodicals.
Read the blogs, news and interesting stuff on the Internet.
Heck, read anything that is written and published. Even that boring manual instruction book.
Well-written words without pictures, static or moving, can fire your imagination or provoke your thinking to new possibilities in your mind. It can certainly improve your reading skills over the long term.
Turn off the TV! 
06/05/2009 at 7:55 PM
Comments:
1.) I agree 100% that captioning is not the SOLE cause for improving reading/writing. I still read everything I could get my hands on as well. Still, I find that it has helped me a lot to learn Spanish…I watch some Spanish TV from time to time to hone my skills…it’s a lot more fun than reading a book on Spanish. I like to watch old movies I have seen a thousand times with Spanish subtitles…really helps a lot.
2.) I did not start up the Facebook group. It was started up by someone at the University of Southern Florida.
3.) Do I know you in the blogsphere? Never read this blog before…it has been RSS’d… Nice entry, BTW…
-J.J.
06/05/2009 at 10:01 PM
I wholly agree with both Rob and J.J. I always point out factors contributing to improvements. Many tend to overlook the vast importance of parental involvement to name just one of many factors. This is akin to certain people (i.e. DBC/AFA) trumpeting my favorite language ASL used in a premiere “bilingual” school environment. The sad part is that some of the aforementioned entities are trumpeting blind to the notion that ASL is a factor, not the solution itself. I’m a native user of ASL but I know for a fact ASL/bilingualism alone will amount to nothing if parental involvement, village-wide accountability, academic rigor and countless other important elements factors in the big picture. Serving heaps of passive learning (not necessarily limited to TV and the Internet in form of videos) is why a one was prompted to come up with “Sensory Confusion.” Keep up the good here!
06/06/2009 at 11:41 AM
It helps. I know someone who had a horrible English, but, ever since being online and communicating with the world at large via IM, Forums, etc, his English improved dramatically. Practice makes perfect, ya know?
I agree, ASL isn’t always a factor. I have had people telling me that I benefit a lot because ASL, or rather, signs was the first thing I’ve used before spoken language. I would have to disagree. Reasoning behind that in my case, would be that all of my siblings English are not as good as mine. I think it helps when you utilize all that you can: ASL, speech, listening, etc. Take advantage of everything possible that is out there. I do not believe that ASL/Bi-Bi- will guarantee excellent written English for all. That is, thus far.
I don’t use Netflix, yet, if I had and there was no captioning, I’d be pissed. I have a tendency to return movies I’ve rented or get refund for movies I order on my premium cable channels if they’re not captioned, usually that’s granted.
06/06/2009 at 3:11 PM
Rob,
Good blog entry! Absolutely right about the factor of captioning tv doesn’t only improve reading proficency.
I had been a part of the literacy research project associated with the captioned tv shows. Too many deaf children were not able to read captions because those captions were too fast for them to grasp of words being said and not process their word acquisition very well.
My deaf mother sometimes get real frustrated when captionings on tv go too fast, especially live broadcasts. She uusally asked me what someone on tv said.
I once glorified the comic book readings to boost the English literacy skills, ex. reading. My language arts teacher said that the comic books were just good with dialogues, not the full context of reading materials.
I got boosted from reading the entire encloyepdia set when my deaf mother went to her workplace every time. I was a latchkey kid myself from age of 4 to 9 before my mother got remarried to the liberal Republican stepfather.
Candy,
More and more deaf people ought to ask themselves why they have to pay the full price for cable tv services while not all cable programmings being captioned. Just think about it!
I notice that more and more home rental videos get less captioned lately. That is very disappointed for the 2000s progress!
RLM
RLM
06/08/2009 at 10:20 AM
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
05/24/2010 at 10:52 PM
There is years of research validating impact of captioning on overall literacy. I am a High School Teacher — and given my practical experience with both teaching reading and dealing with HS student’s poor reading skills — I am a major advocate for the addition of open dynamic subtitling on all media (especially music video) that targets children.
Take a look at my site http://www.sls4reading.com or LiteracyPlanet’s site http://www.sls4literacy.com (application is being used on Indian TV (Hindu dialects)
12/02/2010 at 10:36 AM
you can also save a lot of money when you do some home rentals, just find a cheap one ;,”