The Media Accessibility Platform (MAP) will end its beta testing and release its stable version on 20 May 2021, within the activities to celebrate the tenth Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This is a global event that is held every year on the third Thursday of May with the aim of raising awareness on digital access and inclusion.
MAP’s vision is a world where media is accessible to everyone. This can only be achieved through global collaboration and exchange of information about practices, services, technologies and tools in media accessibility. Media accessibility has become a crucial issue in the global agenda on social and cultural inclusion policies, practices and research. In this regard, many national and international institutions have drafted or passed legislation, recommendations and guidelines.
MAP was created by Gian Maria Greco (Universytet Warszawski), Anna Matamala (Universitat Autòoma de Barcelona), Pilar Orero (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Pablo Romero Fresco (Universidade de Vigo) in 2016. It aims to provide a unified atlas about the global landscape of media accessibility through the creation of a platform that operates as a hub for research, policies, training and practice in this field. MAP’s database contains publications, events, projects, training courses, legislation, regulations and guidelines. The database is constantly updated thanks to the work of many collaborators and currently contains over 2,000 publications, 700 conference presentations and 140 laws and regulations.