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Reading Out of the "Idiot Box": Same-Language Subtitling on Television in India

Author

Listed:
  • Brij Kothari

    (Reuters Digital Vision Fellow, Stanford University, 219 Cordura Hall, 210 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305-4115, USA)

  • Avinash Pandey

    (Assistant Professor Marketing Birla Institute of Management Technology Sector IV, Pushpa Vihar New Delhi, India)

  • Amita R. Chudgar

    (Stanford University, School of Education, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA)

Abstract

Same Language Subtitling (SLS) is the idea of subtitling the lyrics of songbased television programs (e.g., music videos), in the same language as the audio. Situated in a literature review of subtitling, this article describes the first-ever implementation of SLS on a TV program of film songs, specifically for first-language literacy. Chitrageet, a weekly 30-minute TV program of Gujarati film songs, was telecast across Gujarat state in India, with the lyrics subtitled in Gujarati. We discuss the results of the pilot study to test the effectiveness of SLS of film songs on the reading skills of out-of-school people. With limited exposure to SLS within a telecast period of 6 months, SLS was found to make an incremental but measurable contribution to decoding skills, across the group that generally saw the subtitled TV program (as compared to those who did not). Viewer testimonies further strengthen the case for SLS beyond quantifiable improvement, as a simple and economical idea for infusing everyday television entertainment with reading and writing (or scriptacy) transactions. The potential of SLS in India and other countries is enormous. The idea is especially powerful in popular culture for scriptacy skill improvement, motivation of nonscriptates, increasing viewers' exposure and interaction with print from early childhood, and increasing media access among the deaf. Copyright (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Brij Kothari & Avinash Pandey & Amita R. Chudgar, 2004. "Reading Out of the "Idiot Box": Same-Language Subtitling on Television in India," Information Technologies and International Development, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 23-44.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:itintd:v:2:y:2004:i:1:p:23-44
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    Cited by:

    1. Karthik Muralidharan & Abhijeet Singh & Alejandro J. Ganimian, 2019. "Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1426-1460, April.
    2. Sashwati Banerjee & Sujoy Chakravarty & Ira Joshi & Siddharth Pillai, 2018. "Can Digital Technologies Play a Role in Improving Children’s Learning Outcomes in India?," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 3(1), pages 55-86, January.
    3. Mandal, Abir & Regmi, Narendra & Tamura, Robert, 2021. "Education, Fertility and Incomes in the States of India: Demographic Transition," MPRA Paper 110378, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. John Mathew Martin Poothullil & Sujit Sahasrabudhe & Prashant D. Chavan & Deepak Toppo, 2013. "Captioning and Indian Sign Language as Accessibility Tools in Universal Design," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(2), pages 21582440134, June.

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