Sports broadcasters have traditionally pioneered innovative techniques for the broadcast of media sports. One recent technique is a mosaic screen, which presents multiple streams of video simultaneously. This study used eye tracking to examine how viewer attention is distributed among multiple screen elements. Attention varied as a function of element size, game play, and repeated exposure. In addition, participants with greatest interest in sports evaluated the format more positively than those with less interest in sports.
Electronic media accessibility has come a long way since the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In 2010, the Communication and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) mandated closed captioning many online videos and called for making video blind accessible through audio descriptions. The Department of Justice (DOJ) ruled Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) applied to the virtual world. Since January 2015, there have been over 240 online-accessibility lawsuits. As educators, we need to prepare students to understand what accessibility is and how to make electronic media accessible. This article outlines accessibility issues across the curriculum, including closed captioning, audio descriptions, and online documents, and calls for better integration of accessibility into the electronic media curriculum.
College television newscasts serve as training grounds for future broadcast journalists and should help students understand emerging trends in the field, such as social media use and developing web and multimedia skills. Increasingly, television news websites need to connect with technologically diverse audiences, and the industry is under increasing legal pressure to make its websites more accessible, particularly in terms of captioning. In addition, with smartphone use becoming almost ubiquitous and people turning to their smartphones as news sources, the industry needs to make sure their websites are responsive to mobile devices. This study examined award-winning college television news websites to see if they are preparing students for the realities of communicating with technologically diverse audiences by examining website mobile readiness and accessibility, including captioning adoption. While most sites were usable on mobile devices, about a quarter did not offer captioning, and there were wide spread accessibility problems.
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