The final presidential debate in the U.S. was one of the most widely followed programs of 2016. The main broadcasters aired it live on television and streamed it through social media with closed captioning so that all Americans could access this highly awaited political event. After the debate night, most networks uploaded the full program or fragments of it to their websites in order to make it available to viewers who had missed the original transmission. This paper focuses on the closed captioning provided in the videos of the final debate available on the websites and YouTube channels of the most prominent networks that televised the event. Drawing on literature from Media Accessibility, Communication and Internet Studies, an analysis of the availability and functionality of the online captions in those clips was performed, which proved that the accessibility services offered after the debate night to audiences with hearing loss could be substantially improved.

在美国举行的最后一次总统辩论是2016年最受欢迎的节目之一。主要广播公司在电视上直播该节目，并通过带有隐藏字幕的社交媒体流播，以便所有美国人都可以访问这场备受期待的政治事件。在辩论之夜之后，大多数网络都将完整的节目或部分节目上传到他们的网站，以使错过原始传输的观众可以使用。本文的重点是在进行最终电视直播的最著名网络的网站和YouTube频道的最终辩论视频中提供的隐藏字幕。根据媒体可访问性，传播和互联网研究的文献，对这些剪辑中的在线字幕的可用性和功能进行了分析，