Subtitling in the Iranian Mediascape: Towards a Culture-Specific Typology

Abstract

Given the increasing pace of dissemination of cultural content across global borders, subtitling as a cost-effective solution for rendering audiovisual programs is gaining more popularity, even in societies, which have been traditionally using dubbing as the dominant modality for foreign films and television series. Likewise, various types of subtitling practices have developed and are used in Iran both at official and non-official outlets. While official dubbing has failed in some aspect in addressing the growing interest of Iranian viewers of foreign content, a variety of non-professional subtitling has been filling the gap, and subtitling appears to be dominating the audiovisual media market. Despite such developments, the necessities of professional practice of subtitling, including standardized guidelines, codes of ethics and practice, and training, have never been realized in Iran. In the absence of a professional subtitling tradition, this article presents the status quo of non-professional subtitling into Persian and introduces the specific typology of this practice in the Iranian mediascape.