Guest editors: Sofía Sánchez-Mompeán, University of Murcia, Spain; Serenella Zanotti, Università Roma Tre, Italy
Streaming platforms have marked a watershed in today’s film industry, revolutionising mainstream TV distribution systems and reshaping viewers’ consumption habits (Jenner, 2018; Pedersen, 2018). Users are now holding the reins of their own entertainment experience and enjoy relatively more freedom in deciding when, where and how to view media products. The way in which this new reality is impacting audiovisual translation (AVT) and media accessibility (MA) with respect to producers, practitioners, audiences and workflows is worth bringing into focus.
The global success of subscription-based services—such as Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Disney+—has brought with it a growing demand for localised content, substantially increasing the availability of audiovisual products translated into multiple languages through captioning and revoicing techniques (Chaume, 2019). According to Los Angeles Times, in 2021 Netflix released 5 million minutes of dubbed programming and subtitled 7 million minutes (Lee, 2022). Localisation has thus become a game changer for streaming companies wishing to attract a wider audience and to lead an international market that is no longer dominated by English-language originals (Hayes, 2021). As a matter of fact, many of the latest most-watched on-demand series are non-English shows from South Korea (Squid Game), France (Lupin) or Spain (La Casa de Papel), to name but a few. This new AVT landscape has exerted a dramatic impact on localisation demands and trends such as the rise in the consumption of dubbed material in English-speaking markets (Chaume, 2018; Ranzato & Zanotti, 2019; Hayes, 2021; Sánchez-Mompeán, 2021; Spiteri Miggiani, 2021) or the faster speed at which fan-based translations are being generated to anticipate professionally released versions (Díaz-Cintas, 2018; Dwyer, 2021).
The surge in the popularity of AVT and MA practices has favoured the expansion of non-local productions beyond their language barriers, but it has also left translated content increasingly prone to comparisons and criticism due to the relative easiness of access to the different localised versions. Although negative comments are not always justified, especially when disregarding the nature of translation and the constraints attached to it (Orrego-Carmona, 2021), some have served to fight for higher quality levels, up-to-date conventions and better working conditions (Spiteri Miggiani, 2021, 2022), thus turning AVT and MA into hot topics of discussion nowadays.
Notwithstanding that the work of translators seems to be gradually raising its visibility in society, the challenges faced by practitioners as well as the dominant trends in the production and consumption of localised content for over-the-top platforms and the current technological developments such as cloud-based localisation services (Bolaños-García-Escribano & Díaz-Cintas, 2020; Chaume & de los Reyes Lozano, 2021; Georgakopoulou, 2021) are still unexplored from the point of view of academic research and practice.
We are interested in both theoretical and practical approaches that focus on AVT and MA in the current streaming era. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Dubbing research and practice
- Voiceover research and practice
- Subtitling research and practice
- Subtitling for the d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH) research and practice
- Audiodescription (AD) research and practice
- Fan-based translations (e.g., fansubbing, fandubbing, parodic dubbing…)
- Reception and perception studies (e.g., audiences’ profile, challenges…)
- New consumption habits (e.g., binge-watching, virtual communities…)
- Quality parameters and conventions (e.g., use of automatic translation, use of a pivot language…)
- Creative practices in AVT and MA
- Cloud-based platforms and workflows and technological trends
- Production and distribution tools in AVT and MA
- Training, pedagogical approaches and new professional profiles
Key dates
1 September 2023: abstract submission to the guest editors (300 words; references not included in wordcount). Please email your abstract to both guest editors: sofia.sanchez@um.es and serenella.zanotti@uniroma3.it.
30 September 2023: notification of abstract acceptance/rejection.
31 March 2024: submission of full papers via the journal website. Stylesheet:
https://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/about/submissions#authorGuidelines.
April-October 2024: peer-review and revision period.
1 January 2025: deadline for submission of revised versions.
July 2025: publication of special issue.
http://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/announcement/view/23