Documentary and New Media Flashcards
What is a subgenre?
A genre within a genre, e.g. a fly on the wall documentary.
What is factual media?
It’s about real life people and real events. It is a representation of reality.
What is a documentary defined as?
A text that presents a social, political, historical or scientific subject in a factual or informative manner.
What is the issue with documentaries?
Although they are concerned with actuality (what actually happens), it is not real life. It is a re-presentation fo reality.
What are a documentary’s three main functions?
Educate
Inform
Entertain
What are a documentary’s four minor functions?
Give insight
Provoke thought and action
Campaign
Highlight an injustice
Conventions of a documentary.
Actuality footage Archive footage Talking heads Interviews Use of experts Witness testimony Reconstruction Voiceover narration Graphical information
What are the different types of documentary?
Fly on the wall Docu-Drama Docu-Soap Investigative Documentary Personal
What was the first documentary to ever be filmed?
John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It was aired live on TV.
What is the expository mode of documentary?
The ‘voice of god’ documentary. This is the most frequent mode of documentary used. It uses and narrator and assumes a logical argument, using direct address and offering a preferred meaning.
What is the poetic mode of documentary?
This is the subjective and artistic expression documentary. This documentary allows its audience to grasp an ‘inner truth’.
What is the observational mode of documentary?
The ‘window on the world’ documentary. It gives its audience an unbiased view of its subject matter.
What is the participatory mode of documentary?
This type of documentary allows direct engagement between the filmmaker and the participants. The filmmaker becomes a part of the events being recorded.
What is the reflexive mode of documentary?
This documentary emphasises that the version of events being displayed is ‘a’ truth, but not ‘the’ truth. It acknowledges that it is just a re-presentation of reality.
What is the performative mode of documentary?
This documentary allows the filmmaker to be a participant and a performer. It acknowledges the emotional and social impact on the audience.