Regulations that apply
Media & Publishing sits at the intersection of general digital-accessibility law and sector-specific obligations. The most relevant items to track:
- EAA — e-books and e-readersEU
Direct mention in the EAA scope.
- ADA Title IIIUS
Applied via case law to news sites.
The accessibility risks specific to Media & Publishing
Every industry has its own failure pattern. The combination below is what audits, complaints, and lawsuits in this sector keep returning to. Fixing them clears the most-cited issues without touching every page.
- Auto-playing video with sound1.4.2
Violates 1.4.2 and disorients users.
- Articles behind paywall modals that are not keyboard-accessible2.1.2
Even readable previews fail if the upgrade modal traps focus.
A short remediation checklist
Most Media & Publishing teams do not need a 200-item audit before they fix anything. They need an ordered list of the highest-impact moves. Start with these and re-audit after each pass.
- Caption every video, including archival
- Audit paywall modals
Run a free Certvo scan against your homepage and one task-flow URL (login, checkout, booking). It pinpoints which of the issues above apply to you, and how often.
Scoping an audit for Media & Publishing
Media & Publishing carries 2 distinct obligations to satisfy — EAA — e-books and e-readers, ADA Title III — spanning EU and US. An auditor prices the work by how many of those regimes are in scope and how many distinct task flows carry them, not by page count.
The 2 failure patterns above map to 1.4.2, 2.1.2. Every one of those is machine-detectable, which means a scan can clear them before an auditor starts charging by the hour. What remains for manual review is the judgement work: whether auto-playing video with sound actually functions end to end for a screen-reader user.
- Scan first, audit second
Clearing the 2 automated patterns above shortens the manual pass to the flows that need a person.
- Scope by template, not by page
A site with thousands of pages usually has fewer than twenty distinct templates. Price the templates.
- Re-test after remediation
The conformance claim rests on the re-test, not the first report.
- Evidence for EU
Keep dated scan history — it is what turns a conformance claim into something a regulator accepts.