Written by A | Granicus
With video increasingly becoming the content of choice for consumers, it’s important to make sure that information is accessible to everyone. A great way to do that is providing closed captioning on all of your video. Need more convincing? Here’s just a few reasons to consider it.
It helps everyone access public content
Many people in the United States are deaf or hard of hearing, which can hamper their ability to follow along with live or recorded video of public meetings. In a democracy, it’s vital that everyone has access to information – accurate closed captioning can help achieve that.
It boosts transparency
It’s not uncommon for someone who missed a public meeting to want to watch a specific section of previously recorded video to see what was said and voted on. But if it’s a hour-long meeting with multiple agenda items, a person might have to skip around the video for quite a long time before they know they’re in the right spot. Closed captioning makes it easier to search indexed video, so citizens can quickly find the sections of video that interest them most and skip past what they don’t need.
It’s the law
Earlier this month, new Section 508 federal standards went into effect that requires federal agencies—and many states that adhere to similar rules—to provide equal access to digital services for people with sensory, cognitive or physical disabilities. Your organization could be out of compliance.
It’s easy to implement
If an agency is currently using a smartphone or free software to stream video, it can seem like a daunting task to switch to an enterprise video system. But trust us, it’s not. Granicus’ Video with Closed Captioning allows you to live stream proceedings at public meetings with accessibility and security in mind. Our Closed Captioning solution is completely television capable with 98 percent accuracy and up to 200 words per minute. There’s also no advertisements, which you have no control of using other free video platforms. And if you’re using other Granicus services right now, it seamlessly integrates with those tools to provide a complete solution package for every aspect of daily government communications and functions.
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