Documentary Theory

Audience Theory.

Uses and Gratification Theory:

• This theory can be useful when looking at and understanding a mass audience. It focuses deeper on the audience rather then the message that they are trying to portray. It involves the audience, not taking a passive role but that they take an active role by interpreting the media into there own individual lives. It suggest that people use the media to for fill specific gratifications.  

This theory needs for fill one of the following when we choose a form of media:

• Educate - This being able to acquire knowledge and understanding.
• Entertain - What is being shown is for an entertainment factor, also allow the audience to forget about any of the problems which they may have.
• Social Interaction - This leading to a conversation to be sparked through the media, causes interaction between individuals. ( for example may be a topic which can be debated.)
• Identity- Being able to recognise what is being shown - for example a specific individual who is recognised by many. An example of this could be the documentary ' planet earth' and the iconic icon of David Attenborough doing the voice over.

Negative effects of this theory:

• This Theory has been criticized by many, this because they believe that people do not have any power over what is shown by the media. When in reality the media itself chooses what they show. They feel as if the media is being let off for what they show when in reality they should be criticized for it.
• The public have a choose to interpret the media how they want too, it is up to them whether they take it in a positive or negative light, even though the media is capable of manipulating them.
• This theory is much more modern than other ones as now a days there are many more channels and forms of media that we can pick and choose to watch. There are hundreds of channels which we as consumers can pick from, which is different to what we would of had many years ago.
• This theory takes out the fact that the media can have a negative influence on our lives and how we choose to view the world.

The internet :

• The internet enables us to have freedom, allows us to communicate all over the world.
• We are able to search for near enough anything, with the use of search engines such as Google or Bing. This allows us to be educated on events which take place all over the world.
• It entertains us, for example sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many more.
• Education has developed over the past years this due to the development in technologies, there are web pages such as Wikipedia or Bing which both have endless amounts of information. 

Reception Theory;

The audience reception theory is the way in which the audience react to things. Everyone will interpret things differently as everyone are individuals and have their own opinions. This may lead to agreement or disagreement between viewers. This is normal when producing something which may not be liked by everyone.

This relates to Stuart Halls theory, as this explains how a message can mean one thing to one person but a different to another even though it is intended to be the same to everyone.

These include;

Stuart Hall - " The way a reader decodes a text is
dependent on sociological factors
such as age, past and their own experience."

1. Encoding and Decoding, this shows how media messages are produced and consumed by the audience. Not everyone will interpret the message in the same way. A piece of text can be Decoded by body language which will help show emotion.

The meaning of a piece of text is not fixed, there can be a variety of different meanings which can be interpreted by the audience, no matter what people will either agree or disagree. In order to everyone to interpret the same message Stuart Hall said the audience must correctly decode the intended message in order for the meaningful exchange to take place.

There are 3 different ways which the audience can receive a media text.

1. Proffered Reading: This is where the audience agree with what is being said, they listen and interpret in the way which it is suppose to.
   
2. Negotiated Reading: This is where the audience partly agree with what is being said. 
   
3. Opposition Reading: This is where the audience 100% disagree with what they are being told.
   



The Effects model;

The media effects theory is all about how the media can influence society and how society can influence the media. 



It can be both positive and negative, examples of this may be that young children can watch violence through the media and how they believe this to be right. On the other hand society can influence the media has In ways we can dictate to what we want to see.

This theory helps explain the Moral Panic ( The feeling that the situation is out of control and therefor represents a threat to the moral order  ) this in relation to the representation of sex; violence and deviant behaviour and its supposed effects on youths. 

This theory was proposed by Frankfurt school  of social researchers in the 1920's. - This from peoples reaction to the Nazi propaganda.

The Hypodermic Model;

The model refers to the idea that the media is like a drug and we are addicted to it. That once we have started to watch or read about it we can stop ourselves from continuing.

It depends on the view that the audience is completely passive. Media producers can encode whatever they want to the audience and that the audience can dominant the reading. This means that the audience are powerless to resist what the media producers want you to think or feel.

Theodor Adorno


Theofor Adorno noticed how popular culture was the only thing which distracted us indivuals from more important or political issues.

Theory of Documentary:



The aim of a documentary is to be able to report / tell a story of something with real evidence. Sometimes it may contain  real life footage from the events it was taken from. For example the documentary  which I will be filming includes real life footage from the events taking place due to Brexit. Even though sometimes documentaries do not always include real life footage, they use reconstructions as sometimes the real footage is unsuitable for the public.

The different genres of documentaries was defined by John Grierson.





He wanted to give people a glimpse of other peoples lives. He shot real people and real life situation in the real environment as this is what he believed to be a real documentary. Genre is very important, as this allows for many different decisions in the making of a documentary. For example what audience to aim at, what should be in it, or what time it should be shown.

The word documentary was coined by documentarian John Grierson and defined as ' the creativity of actuality'.

Creative Development:

Peter Mayeux - ' Documentaries present facts about a subject
using real events,people, places and then creatively interpret all
comments on those realities and people concerns '  

 Some may say that the word ' documentary' should be changed to ' non- fiction programming' this because of creative development over the past years. Also some have argued of what a documentary should contain. This includes - real experiences or reality also not just facts but an argument which may intrigue viewers, also engages them as It allows them to come up with some kind of conclusion.

Truth and Reality:



 

Dennis O'Rourke - ' It is critical that film makers be rid of the fantasy
 that the documentary can be unproblematic representation of reality
and the 'truth' can be conveniently dispensed and revealed like valium '  

It is said that this is a highly important argument in the world of documentaries. It is unknown how much of the documentary shown is the actual truth, therefor facts and evidence should be presented when they are talking about real life events.

John Corner - 1995:

' What distinguishes a documentary is the portrayal
 of sound and images of actuality '

The features of a documentary according to John Corner:

• Observation - Observations are important in a documentary as it can be used as evidence, which can interest the viewers.
• Interview - A documentary sometimes include interviews, showing peoples opinions of different situations. This can be either be seen of heard, depending on the documentary.
• Exposition - What is the actual reason for the documentary?
• Mise-en-scene - This is highly important when reconstructing reality, in order for the footage to be more ' life like' things such as clothing and lighting all need to be accurate.

 Bill Nichols:



 Bill Nichols came up with the six modes of documentaries. This including:

• Expository
• Poetic
• Observational
• Participatory
• Reflexive
• Proformative

These are all different types of documentaries. For more information on these documentaries please click here to view the page.