Audio description - research and practices

Audio description is a young field of research. Just a few years ago there was no research on audio description in Sweden or Scandinavia. The first Swedish research initiatives started five years ago in the form of workshops in audio description, organized by Jana Holsanova and Cecilia Wadensjö 2010, 2012 and 2014. The anthology presents research contributions from these three workshops.

Audio description is a means to increase accessibility for people with visual impairment and blindness. The taks of the audio describer is to select and describe relevant information (events, environments, people, their appearance, facial expressions, gestures and body movements), for example during TV shows, cinema or theater performances. Audio describers give verbal descriptions of visual scenes in order to elicit vivid mental images and empathy of the audience. There is a great need to develop research in this area because it is theoretically interesting, important for audio description pratiges, for training of audio describers and has consequences for the users.

The planned anthology is the first step on the road to establishing research on audio description in Sweden and Scandinavia. In addition to research contributions from various disciplines, it also presents voices of representatives from government agencies and organizations dealing with disabilities. Anthology editors are Jana Holsanova, Mats Andren and Cecilia Wadensjö. The anthology will be co-published in Lund University Cognitive Studies and in MTM's series and will be made available to blind users.