As internet started to take an important role on the circulation of the audio visual
and written material, it is seen that new forms are starting to appear as well as it effects traditional mediums like cinema, television and print media. In traditional documentary
narrative, while documentarists produce representations of individuals it was completely
ignored that they may be interested of producing their self-representations. As it
is more possible and common with the help of new technologies that people produce
their self-representations, the boundaries between the documentarist and the subject/
individual began to disappear. In the first person documentaries, documentarist may be
in the center or may be looking from a distance to her own surrounding, so may not start
the sentence with the word “I”. She may narrate stories from the society, from her own
family with a personal point of view or directly may narrate her own life experiences. In
this manner, as she may be identified as the camera as well as the source of the images
it may be said that the screen functions as a mirror. Whether it is in a manner of confession,
a diary or a social activist first person journalism, it is obviously subjective than
the narrative form of documentarist telling something on behalf of someone else. Just to
better understand the communicative potential of documentaries which are transforming
continuously with the effects of social, cultural, political and technological changes, it is
important to crystallize the narrative layers of documentarist, subject and audience, within
the framework of recent advancements in digital technology enabling and facilitating
self-representation practices in the film narrative. In other words, the exemplification and
analysis of most recent and strong films which have met the audience would be pertinent
to concretize the potential of first person documentaries as a prevalent narrative form.
As it is obvious that visual media has a strong effect on the establishment of reality in
the society, first person documentaries reaching masses easily with the help of the new
technologies must be accepted as an important arena of social involvement, as well as
an instrument of social justice. Because, the lives and experiences of ordinary people,
mostly unheard and unseen, may have strong influence on the way how the facts and
events are to be interpreted and be carried into the future