Deaf culture needs its own voice on television.

People who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, or visually impaired like to watch television as much as anyone else. It just wasn't all that useful for them...until WGBH invented TV captioning and video descriptions.

Unfortunately for us, there seems to be a lack of captioning especially on the Public Access channel. That means, rather than getting us drawn into the show/program, we simply just flip to a different channel, that will have captions. No big loss for us, but it is for those who wants to make their voice heard. And how can they expect us to learn and respect their concerns and opinions when they don't even think to respect us by providing captioning or even American Sign Language (ASL)? American Sign Language, the primary language of many deaf people, is now recognized by linguists as a complete, legitimate language with complex grammatical structures and extensive vocabulary. However, ASL is clearly a minority language in a majority culture that tends not to understand or respect sign language. (Swisher, 1989).

So, instead of being defeated, the Deaf community has created their own shows and programs. Those shows expose the hearing world to the richness of Deaf culture, which promotes Deaf arts and the professional development of Deaf artists. It strives to increase education and opportunity for Deaf individuals. And, it works to foster mutual awareness, acceptance and understanding between the Deaf and hearing worlds.

One show that stands out in mind is Rainbow’s End is Emmy Award-winning PBS series for deaf children. The project is dedicated to introducing children to the humanities—history, literature, language and civics. Employing positive Deaf role models using American Sign Language (ASL) the programs also seek to promote literacy, foster critical thinking skills and a positive self-esteem.

Deaf Mosaic was an Emmy-winning Gallaudet University production thatwas very popular in the 80s and 90s. Deaf Mosaic ,hosted by Gil Eastman and Mary Lou Novitsky, deaf and hearing viewerslearned about many different aspects of the deaf community. The Deaf Mosaic producers traveled and documented events and people.Just a few examples of the topics covered by Deaf Mosaic: a deaf firefighter, international deaf artists, and deaf child inventors. Several episodes can be borrowed for free from the Captioned Media Program. Gallaudet University has put all Deaf Mosaics online at videolibrary.gallaudet.edu (registration required).

There was also a short-lived cable channel, the Silent Network, which later became Kaleidoscope.SN/Kaleidoscope aired deaf programs such as Deaf Connection.

Last but not least, I remember hearing about this Canadian program (I am hoping Professor Wright, you would know a little bit about it!), Deaf TV, which is a pilot for a weekly television program broadcast entirely in American Sign Language. It features interviews with Deanne Bray, star of Sue Thomas FBEye, Christy Smith, from CBS's Survivor, Gary Malkowski, Canada's first provincial Deaf member of Parliament and Brent Pinch, Deaf hockey Olympian.

More than just "signed hearing programming", Deaf TV are produced, shot and edited from the Deaf point of view. Both programs are completely accessible, with sign language, subtitling and voice-over interpretation. They aired on OMNI Television, over-the-air and on basic cable across Southern Ontario and via satellite across Canada.

For the Record Productions Inc. is an award winning video production company in Toronto, specializing in advocacy for the Deaf and Disability communities.