Anna Matamala – Advanced Research Seminar on Audio Description

PODCAST | Francesca Raffi interviews Anna Matamala, Associate Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain).

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Since 2007, ARSAD has been the meeting point for researchers, industry, trainers, trainees, users, practitioners, regulators, broadcasters, policy makers, social activists, cultural managers and anyone interested in audio description. After an edition moved online due to the pandemic, the ARSAD community will meet again in Barcelona in April 2023 to discuss the latest trends and challenges in audio description. This edition will start with a keynote speaker, Sophie Frilley, who will bring some insights from industry, and from a country where audio description has the best possible recognition: the César award. The 2023 edition will kick start discussing the growing role of technology as a cornerstone of our everyday interactions. Technology facilitates contact, provides new opportunities but it also faces us with some challenges. In this technologically-driven world an awareness of social aspects is also growing, from diversity to sustainability, with collaboration at the core of many social actions. Within this context ARSAD aims to be a thought-provoking event where we can learn about the present of audio description across the globe from multidisciplinary perspectives and where we can get a glimpse of the future of this fascinating access mode.

Anna Matamala, BA in Translation and PhD in Applied Linguistics, is Associate Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Barcelona). She currently leads TransMedia Catalonia, a research group focusing on media accessibility. Anna Matamala is the principal investigator of the European project EASIT, on easy-to-understand language, and co-leader of RAD. She has participated in and led projects on audiovisual translation and media accessibility, and has taken an active role in the organisation of scientific events. To know more about her: https://webs.uab.cat/amatamala/en/