This dissertation re-evaluates the ways in which contemporary
television documentary practices engage their audience. Bringing
together historical frameworks, and using them to analyse a range of
examples not considered together within this context previously, the
main finding is that the use of spectacle to engage the audience into
a visceral response cuts across all of the examples analysed,
regardless of the subject matter being explored.
Drawing on a media archaeological approach, the dissertation draws
parallels with the way in which pre-cinema engaged an audience
where the primary point of engagement came from the image itself,
rather than a narrative. Within a documentary context, which is
generally understood as a genre which is there to educate or inform
an audience, the primacy of spectacle calls for a re-evaluation of the
form and function of documentary itself. Are twenty-first century
documentary practices manufacturing an emotional connection to
engage the audience over attempting to persuade with reasoning
and logic? The answer contained within this dissertation is that they
are.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/18364 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Thornton, Karen D. |
| Contributors | Not named |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, Faculty of Engineering and Informatics |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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