Who is currently audio describing in China? A study of Chinese audio describer profiles

Access to culture and information is recognized by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by China in 2008. Access services like audio description facilitate the consumption of audio-visual products such as films by those who suffer from sight loss. This paper attempts to contextualize this access service in China and focuses on those in charge of preparing it – audio describers. In order to provide a profile of these audio describers, a questionnaire was distributed in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. The results show that an overwhelming majority of those audio describing are volunteers aged 20-50, and most have a university education background which is not related to Audiovisual Translation. They come from a varied professional background, most have only been audio describing for a few years, they lack formal training in audio description and mainly audio describe films in Standard Chinese.