The Review examined policy and regulatory frameworks that apply to ‘converged media’, media that is a combination of diverse communications platforms, for example, television content that is now available online.
On release of the Background Paper last year, The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, said “Media and communications industries affect the lives of every Australian, and the Convergence Review will have important outcomes for our society.”
However, despite 20% of the population with disabilities facing barriers to accessing converged media, and submissions from a number of disability organisations including Media Access Australia, accessibility was entirely ignored in the Review.
CEO of Media Access Australia, Alex Varley said, “It is really disappointing to see the lack of recognition that media access for 1 in 5 Australians is a key issue in the convergence discussion.”
The submission by Media Access Australia (doc, 344KB) called for standardisation of the requirements for captioning, audio description and web accessibility, believing that access solutions provided on one platform should be carried across all platforms.
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