A Short Comparative Study on Accessible and Non Accessible Public Service Advertisement on Skill India

Abstract

Advertisements play a vital role in dissemination of information regarding products and services.
Public Service Advertisements (PSA) are generally aimed at public well-being. Persons with
disabilities (PWDs) are also consumers of PSA in the society. Accessibility plays a vital role for
PWDs. The research aims to evaluate one such PSA on the grounds of accessibility with regards to
PWDs. Skills and knowledge is key drivers of macro-economic growth and socioeconomic stability.
Many people around the world are faced with the problems of being unable to find viable
employment or not being qualified for the employment that is available. To combat rising
unemployment and poverty levels and an increasing lack of qualified workers, Indian Government
is creating skill development programs which help build vocational skills in workers. Accessibility
of PSA in the digital format can be done with the help of Universal Design (UD) in digital media
application. In this research, two aspects of UD in digital media captioning and Indian Sign
Language (ISL) is used. The advertisement selected for the study gives out a state-sponsored
message on Skill India and therefore must be accessible to everyone including PWDs in the society.
This study surveyed the responses of persons with and without disability to the advertisement
made accessible using captioning and signing using the Indian Sign Language (ISL). The results of
this research indicate that there is a significant difference in the responses on the usage of ISL and
captioning in advertisements by persons with and without disability and understanding of
message in the PSA selected for the study