The accessibility of digital communications media in Spain: the responsibility of journalists in the generation of inclusive content

Abstract

After analysing reference studies on the accessibility of digital communications media in Spain and consulting with accessibility experts, this study identifies the access barriers for disabled people, the elderly and other groups that can be generated by journalists when producing contents for the web environment. The main barriers which can be affected by the professional practice of journalists include the following: imprecise hyperlinks, image links without text alternatives, no new window alert, images with missing or inadequate text alternatives, incorrect heading structure, inadequate marking of lists, images with printed text, poor image contrast, the semantic use of colour without offering an alternative and incorrect marking of data tables. Barriers are identified in relation to fonts that are dependent on website layout, but contain properties that can be modified by journalists. Barriers that arise in multimedia content owing to the lack of subtitles or audio description are also detected, although the possibility of including such functions requires both knowledge and specific tools that are currently beyond the reach of journalists.