Subtitles, Knowledge, and Power: How Are They Connected?

The association between knowledge and power is quite common, even if you have “digievolved” the idea and understand that sharing knowledge is more powerful than holding it. Now, how do subtitles fit into this story?

To answer this, let's take a quick trip back in time, to a historical moment when these short explanatory texts were applied to a wide variety of documents in medieval convents, which were responsible for running most of the libraries in the Middle Ages.

The book “The Name of the Rose” (1980), written by the Italian Umberto Eco is a great read on this subject. It shows how the word and the knowledge it provides influence narrative disputes and the transformation (or not) of many realities. If you are interested but not ready for a 500-page book, there is a 1986 movie of the same title inspired by the novel.

In this context, translation and subtitles are of the utmost importance, that is, small texts included in footnotes to explain unfamiliar concepts or words, or to provide information regarding the text. They help us better understand what we are reading and often introduce us to various references.

This gives us more knowledge, and therefore power. After all, information and understanding about different fields, cultures, and people can contribute to a multitude of actions in the world, whether at work or in personal life.

Nowadays, subtitles are everywhere. In movies, virtual platforms, social media, and so on. Skylar, for example, offers high-quality subtitling service in real time and for recorded content through Legenda.Live and Legenda.Video. Learn more by visiting our website.