Saying what it means: Semi-automated (news) media annotation

This paper considers the automated and semi-automated annotation of audiovisual media in a new type of production framework, A4SM (Authoring System for Syntactic, Semantic and Semiotic Modelling). We present the architecture of the framework, describe a prototypical camera, a handheld device for basic semantic annotation, and an editing suite to demonstrate how video material can be annotated in real time and how this information can not only be used for retrieval but also can be used during the different phases of the production process itself. We then outline the underlying XML Schema based content description structures of A4SM and discuss the pros and cons of our approach of evolving semantic networks as the basis for audio-visual content description.