International Media Conference Starts Today in Berlin

More than 230 specialists from 30 countries confer about languages and cultures in the media scene

Berlin. "Languages and the Media", an international conference on the role of language in audiovisual media, opens today, October 30th. More than 230 media professionals from 30 countries are convening for two days of international dialogue. The symposium spotlights synchronisation and translation - and the intimately related cultural issues - in television, film, the Internet and other audiovisual modalities.

In today’s opening session, Brij Kothari of the Indian Institute of Management will introduce his Alphabetisation Project "Same Language Subtitling" (SLS). Based upon his initiative, Indian national television has been broadcasting Bollywood films and music videos with Hindi subtitles since 1999. This has rendered television a reading-education aid for a large target audience and has contributed to a drastic reduction of illiteracy among the Indian population.

In his talk at today’s opening, Alex Varley of Media Access Australia discussed the challenges in a globalised media world. He raised the question whether the quality of globally produced media products can be guaranteed and - if so - how this can be done. According to Varley, local productions, which can better express and maintain cultural discreteness, are increasingly gaining in significance.

The Conference again tackles topics such as quality standards for translation, synchronisation, subtitling and media access for the hearing and vision impaired. Another focus is interactive media, such as the Internet and computer games. Media mavens will also give insight into the localisation of media content as well as technological innovations in machine translation and digital speech recognition.

"Languages and The Media" is accompanied by a professional exhibition where language technology producers and language services providers will present their latest wares.

Further information about Languages and The Media is available online at
www.languages-media.com.

Languages & The Media
7th International Conference & Exhibition on Language Transfer in Audiovisual Media
October 29 – 31, 2008, Hotel InterContinental Berlin

Organiser: ICWE GmbH, Leibnizstr. 32, 10625 Berlin, Germany
Contact: Ms Astrid Mendoza, Tel: +49 (0)30-310 18 18-0

info@languages-media.com, www.languages-media.com

Press Contact:
Juliane Walter
ICWE GmbH
Leibnizstrasse 32
10625 Berlin, Germany

Tel.: +49 (30) 310 1818 34
Fax: +49 (30) 324 98 33
juliane.walter@icwe.net
www.icwe.net