Sancho-Aldridge J, Davis A
Independent Television Commission, London.
Br J Audiol. 1993 Jun;27(3):163-73. doi: 10.3109/03005369309076690.
Just under one in 10 of a nationally representative sample of UK television viewers said that they experienced difficulty with their hearing. These hard-of-hearing viewers were found to report much greater difficulty watching programmes (mean difficulty rating = 32%) than elderly viewers with no reported hearing difficulty (mean difficulty rating = 10%), or those viewers generally who said they had no hearing problems (mean difficulty rating = 3%). Using a similarly constructed rating for reported enjoyment of different television programmes, hard-of-hearing viewers were found to exhibit a small reduction in enjoyment across the majority of programmes types. While it might have been anticipated that a greater proportion of those with impaired hearing owned a teletext television set giving them access to subtitling, this was not found to be the case. Across the sample as a whole, teletext ownership was shown to be 45%, but was lower than this (38.5%) amongst the hard-of-hearing. The findings corroborate what has been shown in another study, namely that teletext ownership is lower among older viewers. Hearing impairment, if it is not congenital or of early childhood origin, is a condition associated with increasing age. Thus, those whose viewing and appreciation of programmes might be enhanced by subtitles, in the main, do not have access to them. Among hard-of-hearing viewers who did have access to the teletext subtitle service, two thirds of those aged 51 years and over felt that subtitles assisted their understanding of television programmes. As one might expect, of those owning teletext, hard-of-hearing viewers reported greatest use of subtitles. Thirteen per cent of those with hearing difficulty and aged over 51 years said they used subtitles for all programmes watched and a further 26% of the over fifties with hearing difficulty reported regularly using subtitles for selected programmes. These data advocate that there are many hard-of-hearing viewers whose viewing could be enhanced by subtitling. Effort should be made to promote public and professional awareness of the availability of teletext subtitling and additional resources will be needed to combat the technophobia which may hinder older people from initially purchasing a teletext television set, or making effective use of one they already own.
在英国具有全国代表性的电视观众样本中，每10人中就有不到1人表示自己听力有问题。研究发现，这些听力有问题的观众表示观看节目时遇到的困难（平均困难评级为32%）比没有听力问题报告的老年观众（平均困难评级为10%）或那些自称没有听力问题的观众（平均困难评级为3%）要大得多。使用类似的结构对不同电视节目的观看体验进行评级后发现，听力有问题的观众在大多数节目类型中的观看体验略有下降。虽然人们可能预计，听力受损者中拥有图文电视并能使用字幕的比例会更高，但实际情况并非如此。在整个样本中，图文电视的拥有率为45%，但在听力有问题的人群中这一比例较低（38.5%）。这些发现证实了另一项研究的结果，即老年观众中图文电视的拥有率较低。听力障碍如果不是先天性的或儿童早期出现的，往往与年龄增长有关。因此，那些观看和理解节目可能会因字幕而得到改善的人，总体上无法获得字幕服务。在能够使用图文电视字幕服务的听力有问题的观众中，51岁及以上的观众中有三分之二认为字幕有助于他们理解电视节目。不出所料，在拥有图文电视的人中，听力有问题的观众表示使用字幕最为频繁。13%的51岁及以上听力有问题的观众表示他们观看所有节目时都使用字幕，另有26%的50岁以上听力有问题的观众报告经常为部分节目使用字幕。这些数据表明，许多听力有问题的观众的观看体验可以通过字幕得到改善。应该努力提高公众和专业人士对图文电视字幕服务可用性的认识，还需要投入更多资源来克服技术恐惧症，这种恐惧症可能会阻碍老年人最初购买图文电视，或有效使用他们已有的图文电视。
