A Netflix Original Closed Captioning Study: How Netflix Closed Captions Make Audiovisual Content Accessible to Deaf Audiences

Abstract

Netflix is currently the world's largest subscription-based streaming platform, with 221.8 million subscribers worldwide (Maglio, 2022). Part of Netflix's enormous global appeal is its Netflix Original brand of films and TV shows - content it produces specifically for broadcast on its streaming platform. To make its content accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences, Netflix subcontracts the creation of closed captioning to vendors, instructing them to follow the Timed Text Style Guide (TTSG), which it makes freely available online. My study examines how closed captions for Netflix Original content endeavour to make audiovisual content accessible to deaf audiences, and I demonstrate how the platonic ideal of "equal access" is out of reach due to the limitations of timed text. The objective of my study is to highlight and critique the transformations of meaning that occur when captions translate sound and spoken dialogue into timed text. Drawing on D'Acci's circuit model of media studies (2004) my thesis links the sociohistorical conditions from which captioning techniques and technologies were developed, the conditions of caption production, and the way in which the needs of deaf audiences are articulated in the TTSG. I explore how these three forces affect the content of closed captions. To this end, I engage in a close reading of the TTSG and a selection of closed captions for Netflix Original series and films, borrowing from Berman's (2000) theories regarding the deforming tendencies of translation to describe the changes that result from the intralingual and intersemiotic translation involved in captioning (Jakobson, 2004). My study is informed and inspired by my personal experience as a professional captioner.