The general aim of the UMAQ project was to tackle this conundrum and investigate the possibility of devising a wider and more unified vision able to address the problem of quality in media accessibility. The project decided to adopt an informational perspective and a blended top-down/bottom-up approach. The choice was grounded upon two main reasons: (a) the profound influence of information technologies on the growth of media accessibility; and (b) the fact that the field of information quality has a rich range of well-tested theories, methods and models to analyse quality problems. In the very first steps of the project, it became clear that, in order to investigate the possibility of a unified vision for understanding quality in media accessibility, the devising of a general theoretical framework able to account for the new position of media accessibility per se was needed. Consequently, the project first theorised such a novel framework, called accessibility studies, and defined it as the research field concerned with (a) the critical investigation of accessibility processes and phenomena, and (b) the design, implementation and evaluation of accessibility-based and accessibility-oriented methodologies. Within this framework, media accessibility assumes a universalist, non-discriminatory account, as the area dealing with (a) providing access to media artefacts as well as (b) the use of media artefacts in order to provide access to different aspects of life for those who cannot adequately (that is, in terms of their specific needs or wishes in a given context) access them in their original form. Then, the project used the accessibility studies framework and the universalist account to examine the problem of quality in media accessibility. This allowed for novel insights and results. Borrowing from the field of information quality the notion that quality is multidimensional, the application of the lens of accessibility studies to the analysis of the current debate on the topic led to two main insights. On the one hand, there was the identification of a synecdochal fallacy: the tendency of media accessibility research, policies and practices to focus on a few quality dimensions, but then draw sweeping conclusions on quality in general. On the other hand, the predominance of translation-based quality dimensions was recognised; that is, the dimensions ignored or minimised are often the ones that do not involve forms of translation. Thanks to the specific angle provided by the new theoretical framework, the project then introduced the notion of “media accessibility quality” as an overarching notion able to account for both the multidimensionality of quality in media accessibility and the fact that some of its dimensions are non-translation-based. This top-down work was complemented by bottom-up activities, including the organisation of a conference (held on 4-5 June 2018), through which feedback from various sources was gathered in order to test, refine, and strengthen the model. Furthermore, the general analysis led us to identify how some of the problems connected to various conflicting or narrow conceptions of quality in media accessibility could be traced back to the ways in which media accessibility is introduced in education and training programmes, and how such programmes are structured. In line with the accessibility studies perspective, the project then devised a new paradigm for the design and implementation of said courses, through the implementation of “critical learning spaces”. Finally, the innovative perspective instantiated within accessibility studies favoured a new look at the role of technology - and thus, technology-related quality dimensions - in the area of media accessibility. This led to a novel, threefold classification of media access services: a first classification into translation-based and non-translation-based media access services; a second classification according to the human-intensive and technology-intensive axes; and a third classification whereby media access services are placed along a human-technology continuum: from human-only to human-centred/technology-assisted to human-assisted/technology-centred to fully automated services.
