The Institute for Interpreting and Translation and Studies at the Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism at Stockholm University is proud to announce the 8^th Media for All conference – Complex Understandings on June 17–19, 2019.

The conference will be held at the main campus of Stockholm University in the urban national park at Frescati. We are very happy to see the conference series return to Europe in 2019, and we aim to attract academics, researchers, language practitioners, translators, interpreters, broadcasters, government agencies, support groups and the audiovisual translation (AVT) and media accessibility (MA) industry, not only from  Europe, but indeed from all over the world.

Web address: tolk.su.se/m4a8

The world is becoming ever more complex and the world of audiovisual translation and media accessibility no less so. With ever more ways and ever more environments (cinema, TV, video games, computers, smart phones and glasses, social media etc.) in which to take part of (and in) audiovisual material, the complexities for AVT and MA are increasing.

Not only that, but more diverse groups of inhabitants of our audiovisual world (such as the visually, aurally or cognitively impaired, language learners, the elderly etc.) are demanding and getting their just rights as audiovisual citizens.

The media itself is also getting more complex, with more forms interacting (e.g. YouTube clips on facebook, surtitling in smart phones or glasses, cinema releases reappearing on streaming sites, interactive displays at museums etc.). Media has also become democratized, with more prosumer creating, and translating, their own content.

Furthermore, AVT and MA research is becoming ever more complex, as we search for understanding, not only by descriptive, text-centred studies, but also through experimental, viewer-centred studies using ever more complex methods (such as eyetracking, EEG, skin conductivity and fMRI scans). Understanding audiovisual content and impact has never been more important in this increasingly polarized world.

This conference is about creating and mediating understanding in an increasingly complex mediascape. Understanding not only of audiovisual content, but also understanding of and between producers, consumers and prosumers, understanding for the technical and cognitive processes involved, understanding for consumers’ needs and desires, and understanding of and for working conditions, among many other perspectives. So, let’s get together to understand all these complexities!

1. Mediating understanding on screen: subtitling, dubbing, voice-over, interpreting, narration, opera and theatre surtitling, localisation;
2. Media access: subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing, live subtitling, respeaking, audio description, audio subtitling, sign language interpreting, speech to text interpreting;
3. Fan translation: fansubbing, fandubbing, scanlation etc.
4. Research methodology and interdisciplinary approaches;
5. Innovation and new technologies: formats, platforms; AVT and social media;
6. AVT in the global market: production and distribution, new trends, tools, needs, project management;
7. Professional practice and ethics: labour market, working conditions, standardisation and harmonisation, productivity, costs, professional organisations, intellectual property rights, crowdsourcing;
8. Quality standards and quality assurance;
9. Reception research and audience needs, broadcasting for minority audiences;
10. Censorship, manipulation and history of AVT;
11. AVT training: curricula, new needs, standards, didactics and skills.