Enabling Polyvocality in Interactive Documentaries through ‘Structural Participation’

Recent innovations in online, social and interactive media have led to the emergence of new forms of documentary, such as interactive documentaries (‘i-Docs’), with qualities that lend themselves to more open and inclusive production structures. Still, little is known about the experience of making and/or participating-in these kinds of documentary. Our two-year in-the-wild study engaged a large community-of-interest in the production of an i-Doc to explore the ethically-desirable yet challenging aim of enabling multiple subjects to have agency and control over their representation in a documentary. Our study reveals insights into the experiences of participating in an i-Doc and highlights key sociotechnical challenges. We argue that new sociotechnical infrastructure is needed, that frames both ‘executory’ and ‘structural’ forms of participation as symbiotic elements of a co-design process

Exercising radical democracy: the crisis of representation and interactive documentary as an agent of change

The utopian promise of the digital era and the seemingly open, democratic power of the Internet have raised the hopes of activists and documentarians alike. The immediacy, reciprocity and accessibility of the emergent communication technologies appeared to be particularly suitable for media projects that aspire to mobilise for action, engage communities, and challenge the existing power structures in order to have direct influence on policy making. Over the last ten years, a whole new crop of documentary projects involving new modalities and unorthodox ways of knowledge production came into existence. Interestingly, the rise of this particular form coincided with the global economic crisis and a number of social and political upheavals of epochal proportions. Documentary representation, like all other forms of cultural expression, was not immune to those shifts. This article looks at the ensuing crisis of representation as linked to contemporary documentary practice, and examines some of the ways the new, web-based forms of documentary use polyvocality to engage their audience, build communities, and mobilise in struggles for social change. It features several examples and draws on the existing documentary theory, as well as the implicit, yet rarely invoked, links to the so-called “relational art”

Enhanced Experiences in Interactive Nonfiction: An Experimental Study on the Effects of Nonlinearity and Interactivity

The evolution of digital media has been accompanied by new ways of telling stories. Interactive nonfiction includes works that represent reality and employ interactive technology. This field has been studied from the perspective of production, especially in journalism where there is an emergence of interactive and immersive formats, but there are still questions about its value from the point of view of reception. The aim of this study is to identify the effects of nonlinearity and multimedia-interactive attributes on the user experience. The research is based on an experimental design (N = 110) with an interactive documentary in webdoc format. The results indicate that nonlinearity and multimedia- interactive attributes have positive effects on perceived levels of engagement and immersion. These contributions can be applied in digital journalism, where publishers seek to engage new audiences, and other fields, such as education and health, with the effect of transforming viewing into an enhanced experienceThis work was supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spain) and the ERDF structural fund (RTI2018–093346-B-C33)S

Remediations of Nonfiction: Animation, Interactivity and Documentary from Africa

This article explores re-mediations of non-fiction through an examination of so-called animated documentary and interactive documentary. By focusing upon case studies from Africa, the article proposes that whilst these processes and methods are not conventionally aligned with documentary practice in a customary sense, they offer aesthetic strategies that allow artists and filmmakers to consider their position reflexively as authors, curators and participants in the narratives that they seek out to explore. Their films exist on the periphery of typical classifications of this genre and this peripheral status allows them degrees of freedom that would otherwise not be possible with conventional methods. In animation, for example, they are able to draw upon specific aesthetic motifs or culturally located iconography that resonates with local audiences. Through interactivity they are able to tap into the participatory cultures and user-generated content to encourage polyvocality as a means to examine “truth” and in turn to question the authority of the author

Facts, Interactivity and Videotape : Exploring the Design Space of Data in Interactive Video Storytelling

We live in a society that is increasingly data rich, with an unprecedented amount of information being captured, stored and analysed about our lives and the people we share them with. We explore the relationship between this new data and emergent forms of interactive video storytelling. In particular we ask: i) how can interactive video storytelling techniques be employed to provide accessible, informative and pleasurable ways for people to engage with data; and ii) how can data be used by the creators of interactive video stories to meet expressive goals and support new forms of experience? We present an analysis of 43 interactive videos that use data in a noteworthy fashion. This analysis reveals a design space comprising key techniques for telling engaging interactive video stories with and about data. To conclude, we discuss challenges relating to the production and consumption of such content and make recommendations for future research

The Co-Creation Space: An online safe space for community opera creation

This work presents the Co-Creation Space, a multilingual platform for professional and community artists to 1) generate raw artistic ideas, and 2) discuss and reflect on the shared meaning of those ideas. The paper describes the architecture and the technology behind the platform, and how it was used to facilitate the communication process during several user trials. By supporting ideation sessions around media items guided by a facilitator and allowing users to express themselves and be part of the creation of an artistic product, participants were enabled to access new cultural spaces and be part of the creative process

The Co-Creation Space: An online safe space for community opera creation

This work presents the Co-Creation Space, a multilingual platform for professional and community artists to 1) generate raw artistic ideas, and 2) discuss and reflect on the shared meaning of those ideas. The paper describes the architecture and the technology behind the platform, and how it was used to facilitate the communication process during several user trials. By supporting ideation sessions around media items guided by a facilitator and allowing users to express themselves and be part of the creation of an artistic product, participants were enabled to access new cultural spaces and be part of the creative process

Interactive documentaries

Horizon 2020(H2020)Global Challenges (FSW