Audiovisual translation in context. Granting access to digital mediascapes

Against the backdrop of what is known as “the fourth industrial revolution” (Schwab 2017) and the revolutionary switchover from analogue to digital technology at the end of the last century, the audiovisual industry has fast developed new ways of distributing audiovisual materials across language and cultural communities. As part of this global drive, translations play a pivotal role, making the most of the potentialities offered by social media and the digital universe, wherein new mediascapes are being construed and negotiated. The term “mediascape”, coined by Arjun Appadurai, is frequently used to refer to: both the distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information (newspapers, magazines, television stations and film production studios) which are now available to a growing number of private and public interests throughout the world, and to the images of the world created by these media.