Making publics: Documentary as do-it-with-others citizenship

Rose, Mandy

Abstract

This chapter explores significant collaborative, interactive documentary practices that are emerging in the context of digital culture, and situates these emerging practices in relation to the counter-history within documentary in which subjects have taken on forms of agency and editorial control in the production process.
By using contemporary examples I will suggest why the concept of DiY is problematic for documentary. Awareness that a DiY approach to documentary making is not universally available prompts a questioning of the valorisation of the concept of DiY in the context of complex media production. Through the lens of co-creativity I discuss collaborative documentaries as a strategic response to the ‘participation gap’ (Jenkins 2006, 23).
But there is more than this at stake in these collaborative documentary practices. In my view, the concept of DiWO (Do-it-With-Others) is better equipped to capture the dynamics and importance of these projects. A co-creative, DiWO approach to documentary provides a progressive re-working of documentary’s historic role in the public sphere, as an "open space" (De Michiel and Zimmermann) for dialogue and a stage for the performance of citizenship.

• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jul 17, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 15, 2016
• Publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (MIT Press)
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 201-212
• Book Title: DIY Citizenship : Critical Making and Social Media
• ISBN: 9780262026819
• Keywords: documentary, interactive documentary, participation, digital culture, co-creation
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/821411
• Publisher URL: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/diy-citizenship
• Additional Information: Additional Information : © 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by permission of the MIT Press
• Contract Date: Nov 15, 2016