Investigating Media Accessibility for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Iraq

Abstract

Media accessibility, (MA) for short, is still largely uncharted research territory in the Translation Studies scene in Iraq. To examine the status quo of media accessibility for the (DHH) community, this study has three aims to address: first, to subject the Iraqi constitution to a thematic analysis to highlight the legal status of media accessibility; second, to examine the real actions taken by the government and non-governmental organizations to ensure that the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) can access this service; third, to probe the DHH community’s reception and their level of expectations towards the available (MA) service. The findings suggest that the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq contains Articles that refer directly to rights of people with special needs to access the public service, but no reference to the right of media accessibility (MA) is identified. The study also shows that sign language interpreting (SLI), though scarcely employed in very few TV channels, has been the only audiovisual modality available for DHH viewers to access TV news whereas subtitling for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) modality has never been implemented.