Policy‐making in the public interest: a contextual analysis of the passage of closed‐captioning policy

Abstract

In 1990 the United States Congress approved the Television Decoder Circuitry Act, which mandated that all television sets 13 inches or larger for sale in the United States be manufactured with caption‐decoding microchips. This legislation allowed millions of deaf and hearing‐impaired people throughout the US access to captions on commercials and television programs. Access to technology is one determinant of who can participate in the social, cultural, political and economic facets of a society. Scholars recognize that communication processes in the public sphere often are unbalanced. Access to media outlets creates a gap between those with media power and those without. Using a contextual analysis framework supported by a social model of disability, this paper defines the roles of parties involved in the passage of closed‐captioning legislation and highlights how social forces were successful in passing legislation beneficial to the Deaf and Hearing‐impaired community.