The Pros And Cons Of Closed Captioning

Growing up, I was the type that watched cartoons every morning. I would wake up, grab my juice and sit down and watch anything, and everything. From Spongebob to Max and Ruby, it was just a part of my normal morning routine, but for some reason, my mom always insisted in putting on the subtitles. She claims that she wanted me to “read the words, rather than just listen”, but what I thought were subtitles, were not subtitles at all. What I was really witnessing was Closed Captioning. At first glance subtitles and Closed Captions look very alike, but as you delve deeper into the realm of Closed Captioning, you realize that they have many distinct differences. Rather than just analyze Closed Captioning and how people use it to communicate, I’ve decided to clear up some of the misconceptions regarding Closed Captioning, by first looking at a brief history of the realm of Closed Captioning. Then finally, clearing up some of these misconceptions by looking at how they

Real Time Captioning works to put Closed Captions onto live news and television broadcasts, but not just anyone can caption these programs. Real time captioning requires a court reporter, or the people we see in a courtroom who type every single word, who can type at least 250 words per minute (Allen). This is also a very nerve-wracking job because everyone is watching every word you type. A single mistake could change an entire phrase. In 2007 Kathy DiLorenzo, former president of the National Court Reporters Association, sat down for an interview with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. She claimed that the job of a Real Time Captioner was like asking them to “write naked, because a million people are reading your words, you can't make a mistake” (Allen). Now that we have laid the foundation for Closed Captioning and look at where it began, we can now move into clarifying some of the misconceptions that come with the realm of Closed