CDA of News Media Language

Critical Discourse Analysis
Professor Martin Conboy
8 December 2016
Discourse
how power and knowledge are expressed in language and in our
case the language of the news media
Critical linguistics
The role of the critical reader
Identifying patterns
Language as a means of recreating conventional hierarchies
Normalizing function of such language patterns

Extended language analysis
social contexts
political contexts
power relationships
to explore the patterning of choice in language
Defining Discourse Analysis
In order to expose the subtle workings of power relationships
expressed through language, discourse analysis undertakes
systematic exploration of the patternings of language across
larger bodies of text to identify common representations and
messages that may be missed in more isolated reading.
Discourse analysis can demonstrate
How the language of the news media constructs social
knowledge.

Relations between social groups - social cognition - socially
shared representations of hierarchies
How language acts on the social but it is also shaped by it -
dialectic
CDA can be used as whole or part of research
Complement to framing or content analysis
On its own to explore aspects of news media
As a semantic exploration
As a syntactic exploration
As a combination of both semantic/syntactic
Rhetoric
Any linguistic feature which has as its chief function the
persuasion of a listener/reader to a particular point of view.
Calls to action.
Typographic rhetoric.

Numbers can also be used as a rhetorical device.
Rhetorical argument appeals to symbolic consensus of ideal
reader through asserted common sense and common experience.
Rhetoric and persuasion
‘a journalist’s news report should aim to persuade the audience
that his or her description and interpretation is the rational and
appropriate one.’ (Kieran, 1998: 27)
Semantic tools
Classification
Register
Lexical mapping

Metaphor
Classification
Dominant actors.
Who gets to speak?
Register
Register refers to the use of a particular type of language in a
particular context.
Cohesion and worldview embedded in language selected.
A version of the language of its ideal social grouping.
Register can reveal as much about the media institution as it

can about its perceived audience.
Assumptions about what the audience knows – lifestyle,
education, interests.
Assumptions about the language used and understood by
audience.
Formal/specialist vocabulary. Informal/ Slang.
Conversationalization
Education policy in the Sun
U-turn by Kelly over ‘old-style’ teaching
Schools were told to go back to old-style teaching methods
yesterday in a bid to boost reading standards.
Trendy techniques introduced in the Sixties face the axe and
teachers’ leaders welcomed the news last night.
But the move comes too late for generations of children let
down by the system…..
Sun 3 June 2005
Education policy in the Guardian
Another round of structural change won’t by itself achieve
universally high standards. Worse than that it could be a
distraction. In five years’ time, whose children will be going to

these new academies? Will choice and market forces once again
squeeze out the children of the disadvantaged?
Estelle Morris Guardian 13 September 2005
Lexical mapping
The nouns, adjectives and verbs used in conjunction with the
main protagonists.
Dominant, foregrounded, preferred vocabulary and metaphors
sideline other potential readings of a story.
Metaphor

The description of one phenomenon in terms of another; a
condensed and implicit comparison.
Politics is often depicted in metaphorical terms in newspaper
language in general. It is a tendency which calls into question
the objective and neutral nature of newspaper language given
the emotive nature of much metaphorical association.
Lakoff (1987) and Goatly (1997) consider metaphorical
language as having the structure of a bridge between the factual
world and ideological persuasion and according to this
hypothesis, metaphors have an important role in establishing
common associations within newspaper texts.
The level of shared assumptions on behalf of an audience
involved in the use of metaphor make it highly significant in
terms of ideology.
Water/flood
Tony can’t turn the tide
A tidal wave of economic migrants is moving across Europe and
is about to crash onto our shores.

Syntactic tools
Transitivity
Passive voice/agency
Modality
Nominalization
Transitivity
Who does what to whom and how.
Transitivity - allows options - is often ideologically significant
in its preferences.
Sentences generally consist of Process (verb) – Participants
(agents and affected) – Circumstances (adverbially expressed).
Passive constructions/agency
Active constructions make the Actor the theme/subject of the
sentence.

Passive constructions provide the opportunity to represent an
event without reference to an agent.
The agent is deleted from the process with the potential for
shifting blame onto depersonalized forces or even the victims
themselves.
Agents can be deleted … ‘for various reasons – perhaps
because they are obvious, but also as a way of obfuscating
agency or responsibility’ (Fairclough, 2000: 163).
Active constructions
Lib Dems oust Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park by-election
(BBC New Website, 2 December 2016)
(Sarah Olney)

Passive construction
At least 200 Taliban have been killed in clashes with American
and Afghan forces over the past ten weeks..
Daily Telegraph 2 June 2005
A British soldier was killed by a bomb blast in the troubled
region of Amara in south eastern Iraq yesterday
Guardian 30 May 2005
Modality
Provides an opportunity for comment and opinion in language.
Modality is used to make claims for preference, truth,
obligation, approval, normality.
Speech Acts.
Modal verbs: may, could, must, should, will
Negations of modal verbs.
Adverbs: probably, hopefully, surely.
Hutton enquiry:
‘Iraq may be able to deploy…’ was changed to ‘Iraq is able to
deploy….’.
Gilligan: ‘….the Government probably knew the 45-minute
figure was wrong.’

Nominalisation/noun phrases
Shift from a process to an entity, turning verbs (and adjectives)
into nouns.
Much is deleted in the transformation involved in
nominalization - time, participants, modality.
Use of nominalization makes for abstract reporting, distant from
concrete events and the real people involved
Ideological abbreviation of a narrative.
Reports can hide the agents of decisions, the founders of
rumours, the processes which have led to a situation.
Nominalization presents the world in terms of already-known
categories.
Nominalization - Examples
The insurgency
Globalization
Global warming/ Climate change
Sex beast

Noun phrase
Extended examples
New Labour’s (1998) Building the Knowledge-Driven
Economy, cited in Fairclough, 2000.
‘In the increasingly global economy of today, we cannot
compete in the old way. Capital is mobile, technology can
migrate quickly and goods can be made in low cost countries
and shipped to developed markets.’

CDA critique
‘capital is mobile’ transforms a transitive action into a relation
‘technology can migrate quickly’ ascribes agency to technology
itself
‘goods can be made in low cost countries’ and ‘ [goods can be]
shipped to developed markets’ are transitive actions processed
without agents
Combinations of semantic and syntactic
Argumentation
Narrative
Argumentation
Ethos
Logos
Pathos

Ethos
Why I, an ardent Europhile, toast the French and the Dutch for
rejecting the Brussels lie machine
Francis Wheen Daily Mail 3 June 2005
Logos
A toxic chemistry can occur when gangs of pre-teen youngsters
are left unsupervised by adults, which they are more likely to be
today, when truanting or after school, with parents still at
work….
It is probably extremely rare that a child loses grip on reality so
completely that it watches a scene on TV and simply re-enacts it
soon afterwards. But the suspension of disbelief when viewing
almost certainly loosens what can already be a weak grasp of
the difference between fantasy and reality in vulnerable
children.
We should not be surprised if, from time to time, the fantasies
become reality and we reap the poisonous harvest that they sow.
Oliver James Times 3 June 2005

Pathos
BURN THE BITCH ON THE STAKE
SHE IS PURE EVIL
Daily Star 13 May
Argumentation: The Study of Argument
Arguments are the statements and strategies which a person
uses to support an opinion or to draw a conclusion
Grounds – The initial assertions or implicit starting point
Warrants – Backing (What justifies the grounds being linked to
the claim)
Claims – the summary/conclusion drawn from the grounds and
the warrants
Come let us rejoice
Celebrating Australia Day is back in fashion, so grab your flag
and start waving, writes Stuart Rintoul
THERE was a time when Australians, if they were at all good-

hearted, were obliged to agonise on Australia Day.
If we had to celebrate a national birthday, the argument went,
then we ought at least to reflect, however briefly, on the cost of
establishing the nation as well as its achievements. We should
be conscious that Aboriginal people regard January 26 as
Invasion Day and reflect on the illogicality of a nation founded
by a British governor and still tied to Britain’s monarchic apron
strings. It was, all in all, a troubling kind of celebration.
Sick to death of this politically correct introspection,
Australians elected John Howard and almost 10 years later are
again blithely celebrating the simple joys of being Australian,
according to some of the nation’s most savvy market
researchers. As a result, flag makers are reporting bumper
business.
The Australian, Features, 26 January 2006. p 13
How do the warrants fit into commonsense assumptions about
the status quo?
A good example of the use of dialectic is to be found in this
piece which charts and rationalizes the shift in Australian public
life to embrace the celebration of Australia Day. It starts with
the premise that the national holiday is something to enjoy. The
warrants are the historical contexts which have led to liberal
guilt about the past in Australia and the claim is that through a
democratic reassessment, as expressed through the ballot box,
Australians have decided to warmly embrace their own shared
sense of national pride. The dialectic pits the ambiguities and
difficulties of Australia’s colonial past and continuing link with

the imperial power, Britain, against a political rejection of those
anxieties which the piece claims are part of a “politically
correct introspection”. Interestingly though, this rejection
depends more on an emotional appeal against “political
correctness” than a rational explanation for the political shift.
Flawed in rational terms but dialectically persuasive in
appealing to the emotions, the piece celebrates the return to
fashion of the Australian Public Holiday.
Multimodal discourse analysis
including image
including typography
including aspects of web interactivity

Top Tips
First, find material which interests you
Choose a strong theme
Use CDA if it is relevant to your research
Identify what language features exist
Enjoy the trip….. If you want to take the ride!
Further reading
Conboy, M. (2006) Tabloid Britain: Constructing a Community
Through Language. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge
Conboy, M. (2007) The Language of the News. Abingdon,
Oxon: Routledge.
Cotter, Colleen (2011) News Talk: Investigating the Language
of Journalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How To Do Discourse
Analysis: A Multi-Modal Introduction. London: Sage.
Montgomery, M. (2007) The Discourse of Broadcast News: A
Linguistic Approach. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Richardson, J. E. (2007) Analyzing Newspapers. Basingstoke:
Macmillan

Thank you for listening.
The Framing Paradigm
Prof. Piers Robinson
[email protected]
OverviewSection One
1) From Content analysis to Discourse and Framing Analysis
2) Detecting frames within media texts and key
methods/approaches
3) Example in depth:- Entman‘s seminal study of the KAL and
Iran Air shootdowns
OverviewSection Two
1) Framing and the exercise of power: Entman‘s Cascading

activation model/political contest model/Propaganda Model
2) Other key studies
3) Nuts and bolts issues and criticisms of the concept of framing
4) Conclusions ... back to truth and objectivity?
From content analysis to framing analysis
Content analysis: ‘A research technique for the objective,
systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content
of communication’ (Berelson)
Bias vs. Objectivity
From content analysis to framing analysis
1) Discourse analysis: ‘In order to expose the subtle workings
of power relationships expressed through language, discourse
analysis undertakes systematic exploration of the patternings of
language across larger bodies of text to identify common
representations and messages that may be missed in more
isolated reading.’ (Conboy)
2) Framing analysis: ‘specific properties of a narrative that
encourage those perceiving and thinking about events to
develop particular understandings of them’ (Entman)
Shift away from emphasis on objectivity (truth) vs. bias and

toward relativism. Reflecting the post modern turn.
Textual elements that help to build frames
1) Language/discourse (e.g. terrorist vs. Freedom fighter,
collateral damage vs. Civilian deaths, surgical strikes vs.
bombing)
2) subject matter (military successes vs. Military failures:
procedural vs. substantive issues: events vs. structural
conditions)
3) visuals ...
4) ‚Event Importance‘ ... scale of attention ... Column inches
and airtime
5) dominant voices/sources
Subject matter
Subject matter (from RT)
Visual elements
Entman‘s influential study
1) Comparison of two like events: KAL shootdown and the Iran
Air shootdowns

2) comparable message potential
1) Conceptual framework for framing analysis:
Problem definition
Causal interpretation
Moral evaluation
Treatment recommendation
Problem definition/event importance
1) Scale of attention to KAL shootdown vs Iran Air shootdown
Moral responsibility
1) Evil Empire (Soviets) vs military personnel and their honest
errors (US)
2) Highlighting relatives of victims (KAL), ignoring those from
Iran Air

Treatment Recommendation
1) Reinforce the Cold War struggle against USSR
2) No change needed to US policy in the ME/Iran
Entman’s Conclusions
Technical fault frame (Iran Air)
vs.
moral outrage frame (KAL)
Section 2: Framing and the exercise of power
Cascading Activation Model (Entman)
The Propaganda Model (Herman and Chomsky)
Size, concentration, ownership, profit-orientated.

Advertising as primary funding.
Sourcing and “specialists” … propaganda campaigns
Flak as a disciplinary tool.
Anti-Radicalism: “Anti-communism” as a national religion.
*
Wolfsfeld’s Political Contest Model
Approaches/Methods
1) Purely interpretive
2) structured approaches: quantitative and qualitative
3) automated computer-based analysis (e.g. cluster analysis)
4) Combined approaches
‘Nuts and Bolts‘
1) Sample selection issues
2) reliability and validity issues
3) intercoder reliability testing
4) comparative approach vs. Clearly defined criteria
5) THE IMPORTANCE OF TRANSPARENCY AND A
SYSTEMATIC APPROACH SO AS TO AVOID SELECTIVITY
AND BIAS ON THE PART OF THE RESEARCHER.

Further interesting/useful studies ...
1) Herman and Chomsky Worthy and Unworthy Victims in
Manufacturing consent
2) Myers et al on Rwanda and the Inscription of Difference
3) Bennett et al Non Dare Call it Torture
Criticisms/Conclusions
1) Researcher bias
2) audience reception
3) New media environment
4) too qualitative/interpretive (lacking objectivity?
5) Avoiding substantive issues about truth and reality
Further readingAday, S., Livingston, S.L., and Herbert, M.
(2005), ‘Embedding the Truth: a cross-cultural analysis of
objectivity and television coverage of the Iraq War’,
Press/Politics, 10(1): pp. 3-21. Althaus, S. L. (2003) ‘When
news norms collide, follow the lead: New evidence for press
independence.’ Political Communication, 20: 3, pp. 381-
414.Bennett, W. L., Lawrence, R. and Livingston, S. (2006)
None dare call it torture: Indexing and the limits of press
independence in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Journal of
Communication, 56: 3, pp. 467-485.Entman, (1991) ‘Framing
U.S. Coverage of International News: Contrast in Narratives of
the KAL and Iran Air Incidents’ Journal of Communication
41:4.

Further reading continuedEntman, Projections of Power:
framing news, public opinion and U.S. foreign policy, (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 2004).Myers et al (1996) The
Inscription of Difference: news coverage of the conflicts in
Rwanda and Bosnia, Political Geography 15/1: pp. 21-
46.Robinson, Piers et al (2009) ‘Testing Models of Media
Performance in Wartime: UK TV News and the 2003 Invasion
of Iraq’, co-authors Peter Goddard, Katy Parry and Craig
Murray, Journal of Communication 59(3): 534-563. 2009.
Researching refugees
"Are Jews Who Fled Arab Lands to Israel Refugees, Too?”
Media History, October 2013
The representation of Jewish migration from Arab lands, 1950-
58, in Anglo-American newspapers.

1
Researching refugees
Research (from idea to execution)
Execution (doing the research, and the compromises)
Publication (a different struggle)
2
Getting ideas
Idea
from somewhere, e.g. interest, curiosity, gap in the literature
Or, curiosity leads to a focus on a topic
Drives the research, takes you down several and different routes

3
Refugees (the numbers)
Many millions of people have been forced or chosen to leave
their homes in national political, and religious persecutions in
this century. Though all are, in a sense, refugees, they normally
retain the name only so long as they do not enjoy the protection
of their own country and have not received citizenship in
another.
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, ARMENIAN PERSECUTION,
SPANISH CIVIL WAR..
GERMAN, AUSTRIAN, AND SUDENTEN JEWS.- ln 1939
400,000 Jewish refugees were spread through many countries,
but chiefly the United States (63,000), Palestine (55,000),
Britain (40,000). France (30,000), Argentina, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia (25,000), Holland (22,000), and Belgium
(20,000).
GERMAN AND EAST EUROPEAN REFUGEES
INDEPENDENCE OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN
PALESTINE WAR. - International organizations took
responsibility for 880,000 refugees after the establishment of
the State of Israel and the Arab-Israel conflict in 1948. The
total of Arab refugees is not known, but those in receipt of
rations were: Jordan, 470,000: Gaza area, 204,000; Lebanon,
104,000: Syria. 84,000; Iraq, 5,000; and Israel. 19.000.
CHINESE CIVIL WAR, KOREAN WAR
EGYPTIAN EXPULSIONS.-It was estimated in February that
5,000 refugees had arrived in Europe from Egypt and that
13.800 more would arrive by July 15. It is hoped that about
7.000 will be resettled in Israel.
Victims Of A Half-Century Of Political Upheaval GUIDE TO
WORLD'S REFUGEES The Times 11.4.57

getting ideas
Martin Gilbert, 2010
Getting ideas
‘… by only using the phrases displaced or left to become
citizens of Israel when mentioning the existence of Jews from
Arab lands, commentators have obfuscated the refugee status of
these Jews, while characterizing the Palestinians as “refugees”.’
(Basri, 2002: 657. Emphasis supplied.)
President Obama ‘never said a word about me. Or, for that
matter, about any of the other 800,000 or so Jews born in the
Middle East who fled the Arab and Muslim world or who were
summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century.’
(Aciman, 2009)
Getting ideas
were they

refugees?
Were they described in the press as refugees (and
does it matter)?
Getting ideas to become focused
"Are Jews Who Fled Arab Lands to Israel Refugees, Too?"
NYT headline helped focus the research question
The representation of Jewish migration from Arab lands, 1950-
58, in Anglo-American newspapers.
8
The focus
Doing the research

(1) The representation of
(2) Jewish migration from
(3) Arab lands,
(4) 1950-58, in
(5) Anglo-American newspapers.
9
From focus to methods
The methods & compromises
Method (qualitative or quantitative, case studies)
Language/ terminology
Sources of data (what is available, language)
(3) Arab lands,
(4) 1950-58, in

10
The methods & compromises
Method (qualitative or quantitative, case studies)
(3) Arab lands,
(4) 1950-58, in
11
The compromises
Method (qualitative or quantitative)
(3) Arab lands,
(4) 1950-58, in

12
The compromises
Method (qualitative or quantitative)
What to include/ exclude
(3) Arab lands,
(4) 1950-58, in
13
Data needs context
literature review

Contextualizing political and historical controversies – it is
about how different groups (Jews, Arabs/Palestinians) were
represented
Understanding migration (forced, voluntary), i.e. who is a
‘refugee’?
Understanding the role of journalism in representing migration
Refugees – some data
(quantitative)
PhraseThe TimesGuardian/ ObserverNew York TimesArab
refugees3053241204Palestinian refugees3023100Jewish
refugees2639321
Refugees – case studies
If the Jews were not refugees or described as refugees, what
were they?
Three studies: Yemen, Iraq, Egypt post-1956.

Refugees – Iraq (quantitative)
Expelled Jews never quite achieved the status of the refugee
per se.
When resettling in Israel, they were ‘refugee immigrants’
(Guardian).
When The Times discussed the plight of the Jews and the
changing nature of the population of Israel, it still framed the
migration of Jews in terms of ‘return’ and ‘immigration’.
In 24 news items published by the Times between April 1949
December 1951, the phrase ‘Arab refugee/s’ appears 10 times,
‘Palestinian refugee/s’ 3 times but ‘Jewish refugee/s’ only once.
Refugees – Iraq (qualitative)
‘This is the beginning of what may develop into the biggest
civilian airlift in history. … If all is satisfactory it will be
followed this month by 30 flights, each carrying 80 emigrants.
… 90 are planned for each following month until all the
emigrants have been carried. It is estimated that as many as
45,000 may leave eventually.’ (The Times, May 1950)
"Are Jews Who Fled Arab Lands to Israel Refugees, Too?”
Discussion
Why were the Jews not readily referred to as refugees (given
that they could not go back)?
How should journalism represent migration?

19
From idea to publication
Publishing (more compromises)
What comes out differs from research
Meeting the needs/ demands of journals
Amending, editing, changing the text to satisfy different
publishers
20
Doing research
Always have a single focus/ clear single question
This determines what you do next
It also incorporates the compromises that you may have to make
Analyse the data with the question in mind
Answer your question

Refugees - Iraq
‘So much publicity has attended that sad departure of the rest of
their community, that the world will judge by their fate whether
in future Jews can really live in an Arab country or – conversely
– Arabs in a Jewish State.’ (MG Jews 1951 April)
Refugees - Iraq
The Guardian’s ‘obituary’ for ‘Iraqi Jewry’ (April, 1951) :
‘One can see now in retrospect the slow but sure process
whereby a minority was made to feel unwelcome … The
“numerus clausus” in schools and colleges, the gradual
elimination of all Jews … from government employment, … the
molestations, murders, and bomb-throwings which went
unpunished, the discrimination against Jews…, the pogrom (the
Farhud) of 1941…. The record is curiously like the dreary and
familiar history of European anti-Semitism.’
Refugees - Iraq
About 150,000 Jews left Iraq in period.
Why did they leave?
Period before departure and period after departure.
Feedback
Dear Tang,
Thank you for your very detailed proposal. It is great to see that
you’ve already looked at some useful books in the library.
These will make a great starting point for your research.

It is also good that you’re keen to explore one of the key
questions related to documentary, which is about its
relationships with the real world. This is one of the key aims of
the module as a whole, so I hope the material we’re covering is
useful to you.
I think there are some things you need to think through, though.
It is very hard to distinguish between when documentaries tell
the truth and when they don’t as lots of people disagree over
what is the truth and what isn’t. You may have noticed that we
haven’t discussed the ‘truth’ in class at all, and we won’t for
the majority of the module. This is because these problems are
impossible to solve. Instead, it is good to explore how
programmes suggest they might be telling the truth, ignoring
whether they actually do or not.
What is good is that you’ve listed the key book that I would
suggest you look at, which is Brian Winston’s Claiming the
Real. You say you are also interested in fake documentary –
what is also known as ‘mock documentary’. We are looking at
these in detail towards the end of the module. But this means it
would be good if you looked at Craig Hight’s (2010) book
Television Mockumentary, and Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight’s
(2001) book Faking It.
I hope that helps, and I look forward to discussing this idea
with you more throughout the module.
Thanks,
Brett
New directions in hybrid popular television: a

reassessment of television mock-documentary
Jelle Mast
UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP, BELGIUM
Beyond reality TV, the rise of TV mock-documentary
In the past few years the fake documentary or so-called
‘mockumentary’,
once an underground (film) genre, has gradually made its way
into main-
stream television production with notable examples like the
highly acclaimed
BBC series The Office and Comedy Central’s Reno 911. These
fictions that
look and sound like documentaries – to put it rather
straightforwardly – have
taken on a great appeal as ‘reality television’ (or ‘popular
factual entertain-
ment’; Corner, 2002) established itself as a staple aspect of
contemporary
television and popular culture.
The term ‘reality television’ is an unstable designation that
covers a wide
and hybrid array of ‘popular factual television’ programming,
the historical
development of which (i.e. since the label was first used in the
late 1980’s) can
be tracked back to the early ‘accident and emergency’ formats
(Kilborn, 2003),
the docu-soap ‘era’ and, most recently, various kinds of shows
based on the
observation of a contrived situation (‘game-doc’ or ‘created-for-
TV’, Hill,
2002). This complex set of cross-generic television programmes

(re)combines
and thus revives traditional television genres, both factual and
fictional, such
as the game and dating show, lifestyle television, the soap
opera, and particu-
larly the documentary. Through its popular appeal and hybrid
nature, reality
programming plays a most significant part in a broad tendency
of the popular-
ization of factual television, which profoundly redefines
documentary practice.
Yet, at the same time, the relentless rise of prime-time reality
formats
Media, Culture & Society © 2009 SAGE Publications (Los
Angeles, London, New
Delhi and Singapore), Vol. 31(2): 231–250
[ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443708100316]
at University of East Anglia on September 30,
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replacing the ‘serious intent’ (to inform, educate or engage) of
documentary
proper (that is, according to a Griersonian understanding of the
documen-
tary project) with the less ‘elevated’ objective of diversion, also
caused anx-
ieties about ‘popular factual television’ displacing or
marginalizing
profound (or ‘serious’) documentary output. The formats’
playfulness, both
in terms of appeal and genre, poignantly brings to the fore long-
standing

issues in documentary practice, like the authenticity of the
portrayed events
(e.g. interference of programme-makers in the pro-filmic, or
‘performing’
and ‘playing up’ to the camera on the part of filmed subjects),
the tension
between recording and the ‘creative treatment of actuality’
(Grierson, 1933)
and questions of ethics (e.g. defiance of human rights,
especially the fun-
damental right to privacy). Moreover, reality television’s focus
on personal
and private experiences and emotions (see e.g. Bondebjerg,
1996), as well
as various instances of formats’ pursuit of the sensational, the
whimsical or
the trivia of celebrity life, has made this kind of television
programming
subject to allegations of tabloidization (as in ‘tabloid culture’;
see Glynn,
2000), ‘dumbing down’ or ‘lowest common denominator’
television,
notions which subscribe to a ‘reality TV as trash TV’ position
(Dovey,
2000). ‘Popular factual television’, therefore, truly is at the
intersection of
popular culture and documentary practice, and hence connects
with many
critical topics of debate in these domains. This, in combination
with its
established status in the contemporary television landscape,
makes popular
factual television into a likely target of critical commentary
regarding doc-
umentary conventions and regarding the sociocultural or
political context

that is often considered to be inherent to mock-documentary.
As Roscoe and Hight (2001) point out regarding mockumentary
film, the
form tends to appropriate the codes of those documentaries that
most plainly
bear the marks of the so-called ‘Classic Objective Argument’,
i.e. the classi-
cal generic forms associated with discourses of objectivity and
rationality.1
Mockumentary films particularly subvert the authoritative,
didactic, omnis-
cient, ‘formal’ voice (Plantinga, 1997) that is often related to
the ‘expository’
documentary (quite literally deployed through the voice-of-God
commen-
tary), or the assertions of objectivity and transparency typical of
fly-on-the-
wall observational cinema. Moreover, ‘exposition’ and
‘observation’ are the
principal modes of documentary realism (Corner, 2003), which
is essentially
part of the mock-documentary project. This particular feature of
mock-docu-
mentary is similarly apparent in the television forms that are
emerging today.
For the type of reality television that is most often imitated is
the docu-soap
format, which stylistically aspires to a ‘reactive
observationalism’ (Corner,
1996) or fly-on-the-wall account of actual events (i.e. without
any intervention
of the programme-makers in the pro-filmic), in combination
with ‘the struc-
turing techniques of the soap-opera narrative’ (Kilborn, 2000).

Thematically,
the docu-soap centres on the ordinariness and routines of
everyday life,
frequently providing a look-behind-the-scenes of familiar
institutions and
232 Media, Culture & Society 31(2)
workplaces (e.g. the pioneering and still continuing US series
Cops [FOX], or
well-known British examples such as Vets in Practice and
Airport [BBC]). A
recent variant of the docu-soap, the celebrity series, shifts the
focus toward
the private lives of the famous and the foibles of celebrity
culture (a sub-
category initiated by The Osbournes [MTV]). Fictional series
adopting the
look of the docu-soap, like The Office and Reno 911, draw on
and expose the
taken-for-granted conventions, claims and practices of this kind
of television
programming.
Yet two recent examples of television mock-documentary in
Flanders,2 Kaat
& Co and Het Geslacht De Pauw (or The De Pauw Family,
henceforth GDP),
shed new light on this hybrid form and suggest that there is
more to it than a
narrow understanding of the ‘border genre’ implies. This article

reconsiders
the theorizing of mock-documentary, its aesthetic and cultural
meaning, fol-
lowing the developments described above, and in so doing
attempts to clarify
that muddy area that lies between straightforward fictional and
factual televi-
sion output. A textual analysis of the Flemish cases is extended
by a contex-
tual study through in-depth interviews with individuals who
were involved in
the production of the television shows. For such a
comprehensive analysis is
needed in order to fully grasp the (‘preferred’) meaning of
complex and hybrid
television products that play with ideas of ‘generic
verisimilitude’ or ‘horizon-
tal intertextuality’ (Fiske, 1987) through which genres normally
work.
Theorizing mock-documentary
Walking a delicate line between fictional and factual
conventions, mock-
documentary is lumped together under the tentative
‘docufiction’ designation
with other hybrids like docudrama or reality television that
fiddle with televi-
sion and film representation’s most fundamental aesthetic
dichotomy. The par-
ticularly ambiguous field of ‘docufiction’ still remains
insufficiently mapped
and conceptualized – notwithstanding the astute but hardly
integrated insights
provided in the scholarly literature about the several different
forms that thrive

in this intricate border area (Corner, 2002; Juhasz and Lerner,
2006; Kilborn,
1994, 2003; Paget, 2004; Rhodes and Springer, 2006; Roscoe
and Hight, 2001;
Rosenthal and Corner, 2005). The difficulties in coming up with
a compre-
hensive understanding of ‘docufiction’ and its constituent parts
seems largely
due to the inherent tendency of hybrids to resist a
straightforward definition,
and similarly to the variety of forms and practices that are
covered by the cat-
egories of ‘reality television’, ‘docudrama’ and
‘mockumentary’. Not unlike
documentary, these categories are rather to be conceived of as
‘open concepts’
(Wittgenstein, 1958) that lack an essential meaning and embrace
several differ-
ent modes and dimensions. This dynamic understanding of
hybrid genres is also
apparent in mock-documentary theory, which is, however,
developing only grad-
ually and still primarily focuses on film genres. Theories of
mock-documentary
Mast, New directions in hybrid popular television 233
do not provide a succinct definition but rather give descriptive
accounts of the
form that incorporate textual parameters (of style, form and
content), often in

combination with extra-textual aspects, more specifically the
‘preferred read-
ing’ of the text (Fiske and Hartley, 1978) and its reception. As
empirical
research into these contextual areas of production and reception
is largely neg-
lected in the study of the mock-documentary, however, these
inferences about
the mockumentarian’s intent or the viewers’ role in watching
the film or pro-
gramme are more often assumed than actually tested.
Textually, the notion of mock-documentary that emerges,
basically, is that
of a fiction that looks and sounds like a documentary, or, as
Rhodes and
Springer (2006) assert, mockumentary is situated where
‘documentary form’
meets ‘fictional content’ (Figure 1).
Yet, in this regard, it could be argued that no particular formal
or thematic
features exist that are the sole province of either ‘documentary’
or ‘fiction’.
As Plantinga (1997) astutely points out, the fundamental
distinction between
fiction and non-fiction is not predicated on the mediated nature
of the represen-
tation but is a matter of the ‘stance’ that is taken (textually and
extra-textually)
toward the particular ‘state of affairs’ portrayed (an idea that is
related to the
notion of ‘indexing’; Carroll, 1996). Therefore, we could
rethink Rhodes and
Springer’s structural definition of mockumentary and its cousins
and under-

stand mock-documentary as a complex form that projects a
(primarily) imag-
inary world while taking an ambiguous ‘stance’ toward the
depicted events
(Figure 2). For mock-documentary, through its use of the style
and techniques
that are conventionally attributed to non-fiction discourse (e.g.
voice-over
commentary, interview segments, hand-held camera), asserts
that the events
and people actually exist as such in the world as portrayed
(‘assertive stance’).
At the same time, however, it indicates textually (e.g. well-
known actors, exag-
gerated or surreal characters and events, credits) and/or extra -
textually (e.g.
labelling and presentation on website, media coverage and
television maga-
zines, award nominations) that this world projection is merely
presented for
FIGURE 1
A structural definition of ‘docufictions’ and ‘mockumentary’
Source: Rhodes and Springer (2006), reprinted here with
permission of the authors
Documentary Form
Fictional Form
Documentary Content
Documentary Form + Documentary Content = Documentary

Documentary Form + Fictional Content = Mockumentary
Fictional Form + Documentary Content = Docudrama
Fictional Form + Fictional Content = Fiction
Fictional Content
the audience’s consideration rather than actually existing
(‘fictive stance’).
This fiddling with ‘assertive’ and ‘fictive’ stances, and the
tension between
documentary’s project to ‘instil belief’ versus the ‘suspension
of disbelief’ of
fiction (Nichols, 2001; Roscoe and Hight, 2001) that ensues,
distinguishes mock-
documentary from classical fiction and non-fiction. Likewise,
the acknowledge-
ment of the text’s fictitious nature sets mockumentary apart
from hoaxes,
frauds and other instances of outright deception of the audience
regarding the
ontological status of the portrayed events. Or, as Juhasz and
Lerner (2006: 10)
poignantly assert: ‘A fake documentary unmarked, and so
unrecognized, is a
documentary.’
Although the ambiguous yet distinctive set of textual
parameters to some
extent carves out a place for mock-documentary along with the
other border

genres in the ‘docufiction’ area, the designation remains a
particularly vague
umbrella term that needs further elaboration in the form of
modes and dimen-
sions. Except for Roscoe and Hight’s (2001) ground-breaking
work on the sub-
ject, conceptualizations of mockumentary are conspicuous by
their absence.
The authors distinguish between three degrees of mock-
documentary – ‘parody’,
‘critique’ and ‘deconstruction’ – which are construed as
constituting a sliding
NON-FICTION
FICTION
ASSERTIVE
STANCE
FICTIVE
STANCE
IMAGINARY STATE OF AFFAIRS
HOAXES &
FRAUDS
REALITY TV
ACTUAL STATE OF AFFAIRS
DOCUMENTARY DRAMA

& AVANT-GARDE
DRAMA-DOCUMENTARY
OR
DOCUDRAMA
MOCK-DOC
FIGURE 2
Situating the mock-documentary form in the ‘docufiction’ area3
scale that ranges from the ‘benevolent’ to the ‘hostile’
appropriation of documen-
tary conventions, and vary regarding the extent to which they
bring the inherent
reflexivity (self-referentiality or metacommentary) of mock-
documentary to
fruition. As such, their interpretation subscribes to predominant
notions of
mockumentary that relate imitation and appropriation to ideas
of commentary,
playful or critical, and strategies of reflexivity, latent or
manifest, and to ‘the
satirical or ironic examination of a fictional subject’ (Rhodes
and Springer,
2006: 5). In accordance with the (non-academic) origin of the
‘mockumentary’
designation as a descriptive phrase for Rob Reiner’s classic fake
‘rockumen-
tary’ This is Spinal Tap (1984), the appropriation of the formal

conventions of
non-fiction discourse in a fictional context is commonly
associated with the
long-standing cultural forms of satire and parody. That is,
Roscoe and Hight
(2001: 47, 50) argue that mockumentary’s agenda is ‘ultimately
to parody the
assumptions and expectations associated with factual
discourse’, and (differen-
tiating the form from its ‘docufiction’ cousin ‘docudrama’) that
‘the appropria-
tion of documentary codes and conventions is used not so much
to anchor the
argument in the real world or to bolster claims to truth, but
rather to offer critical
commentary’. Juhasz and Lerner’s (2006: 7) insightful
collection of articles, on
the other hand, suggests a more inclusive understanding of
mock-documentary,
describing the phenomenon as ‘fiction films that make use of …
documentary
style and therefore acquire its associated content (the moral and
social) and
associated feelings (belief, trust, authenticity) to create a
documentary experi-
ence defined by their antithesis, self-conscious distance’.
Nonetheless, they sub-
sequently assert that ‘revelatory and corrosive action’ or ‘self-
referentiality and
criticality’ are definitive of the form. This article argues against
any narrowing
down of ‘mocking’ to notions of commentary or subversion and
elaborates
mockumentary theory to the domain of television, based on
recent develop-
ments in mainstream television programming, exemplified by

The Office, Reno
911 and particularly the Flemish cases that are discussed here.
New modes in town?
Research design
As indicated above, a comprehensive understanding of
(television) mockumen-
tary’s ‘preferred’ aesthetic and cultural meaning requires a
textual analysis, but
equally needs to move beyond the confines of the ‘text’ so as to
take into
account the production side and broader ‘contexts’ of television
scheduling,
popular culture and society at large. This study, therefore,
combines an analy-
sis of the form and content of two Flemish cases of television
mockumentary
with a qualitative investigation of the show’s production,
‘indexing’ (i.e. cat-
egorization, see Carroll, 1996) and scheduling, thereby building
on theoreti-
cal insights from documentary studies and genre theory. In
order to unravel
the complex meanings of these hybrid cultural forms and to
weigh up the
assumptions emerging from the textual component of the study,

in-depth
interviews were conducted with individuals who were involved
in the pro-
duction process. The qualitative interview as a research method
is particularly
suited to elicit the mockumentarian’s (implicit) understanding
of the form,
and hence to reveal the underlying strategies and ‘preferred
reading’ of the
mockumentary. Altogether, four members of the production
teams of the
shows were interviewed, the numbers were equally distributed
across both
cases. Respondents were first and foremost selected based on
theoretical cri-
teria, that is, their specific involvement in the creative process
of making the
programme, although practical constraints (e.g. willingness to
participate in
the research project) also played a part. Eventually, we
succeeded in inter-
viewing the head of the production company that produces Kaat
& Co, who
was involved in all stages of the production process, an actor
playing one of
the main characters in this series, and the production assistant
and the direc-
tor’s assistant of GDP. Interviewees who were only engaged in
particular
stages of the production process nevertheless, due to the small
size of the pro-
duction crews, proved to be able to provide insightful and
theoretically sig-
nificant accounts of the programmes’ concept and aims.
Moreover, in both
instances information taken from the official websites of the

television pro-
gramme, the production company and/or the broadcaster, as well
as from
occasional press interviews with members of the production
teams about the
respective shows, was used and integrated with the findings of
the textual
analysis and the interviews. Before elaborating our aesthetic
and cultural
analysis, we will briefly introduce the cases under study.
Two Flemish cases of mockumentary television
GDP and Kaat & Co are fictional series relying on the docu-
soap format, made
by Flemish television production companies and transmitted by
the general
channel Één of the public service broadcaster (VRT) in
Flanders. Één is the
largest player in the Flemish television landscape in terms of
market share (an
average of about 30 percent in 2007; CIM-Audimetrie, 2007).
Up to the pres-
ent day, these programmes are unique examples of prime-time
television
mockumentary in Flanders (with the exception of In de Gloria
[Canvas/VRT]),
a parody sketch show that especially alludes to human-interest
television mag-
azines, and 16+ (Één), a copy of Kaat & Co that settles into a
high school and
focuses on teachers’ and students’ lives at work and at home).
GDP is a production of Woestijnvis, a thriving television
production com-
pany that since it was founded in 1997 has been exclusively

committed to
VRT. As a consequence of this unique position in the Flemish
television mar-
ket, as well as its numerous successes (in terms of ratings,
reviews and
awards), Woestijnvis has gradually become renowned for its
high-quality,
innovative and ethically responsible television programming.
GDP astutely
exemplifies the company’s profile, and ran for two seasons
only, achieving an
average market share of about 27 percent (Woestijnvis, n.d.). It
also received
the annual award for best television show in 2004, set up by one
of the lead-
ing weekly magazines in Flanders, Humo. The show looks like
any other
celebrity docu-soap and follows the life of celebrated
television-maker Bart
De Pauw, who actually works at Woestijnvis and acts as
himself, and the other
members of his family (his wife Maaike and their children, his
mother and his
brother Benny, who are all living together, and his brother Tom
and sister-in-
law Tine). GDP combines serialized narrative strands of
interpersonal rela-
tionships (especially the complicated [love] relationships

between Bart and
Maaike, and Tom and Tine) with a clear emphasis on the
situation humour of
family life, and in this particular case aspects of celebrity
culture (e.g. fame,
fandom, persona), which also relates the show to the (episodic)
generic form
of the family sitcom (Hartley, 2003).
The second case, Kaat & Co, is a serial about everyday issues in
the lives
of a young woman, Kaat Cremer, the rest of her family
(primarily her bio-
logical parents and brother) and their friends, who live in
Antwerp, Flanders.
The multiple narratives are set against the contemporary
background of a
middle-class, reconstituted family situation (Kaat’s parents are
divorced) and
urban life, with a focus on interpersonal relationships and
emotions devel-
oping from events in the characters’ private and professional
lives (e.g.
youth, love relationships, adultery, drug and alcohol abuse,
marital difficul-
ties, health or financial problems). The programme was created
by Sputnik
TV, a relatively new production company founded in 2003,
which also sup-
plies docu-soaps to the public broadcaster on a regular basis.
The pilot
episode of the series went on air in March 2004 on a Sunday
evening, typi-
cally the most high-rating slot in the television schedule. Yet
the series was
subsequently shown in prime-time on Tuesday and Thursday

evenings. After
the peak viewership of the premier episode (market share of 34
percent;
CIM-Audimetrie, 2004), audiences for Kaat & Co initially
dropped but later
gradually climbed, resulting in an average market share of about
23 percent
throughout its entire run (VRT, 2008). In 2005 the programme
received nom-
inations for the prestigious Golden Rose awards for
entertainment television,
and the Prix Europa, an initiative of the European Cultural
Foundation and
the Council of Europe. After running for five seasons, Kaat &
Co’s final
episode was transmitted in May 2007.
Mockumentary and the ambiguous stance
The role of extra-textual indexing and scheduling
The generic status of a television programme is established
through its (per-
ceived) adherence to a particular set of formal and thematic
conventions, in
combination with contextual factors such as scheduling and its
categorization
in media coverage and by the television industry itself.

A close inspection of the terms and descriptions that circulate in
media dis-
courses, on the official websites of the production companies
and broadcaster,
and in our interviews, indicates the difficulty of consistently
pinning down
what Kaat & Co and GDP amount to in terms of fiction and non-
fiction. Kaat
& Co is commonly described as ‘docufiction’ and a ‘ficti onal
docu-soap’,
although the producer we interviewed adds that the production
company inter-
nally regards the format as pure fiction (also, the Golden Rose
nomination was
in the category ‘soap’). On the homepage of Sputnik TV the
programme is
indeed to be found in the ‘fiction’ section, yet, is described as
‘docufiction’
elsewhere on the site. As for GDP, the interviewees discussed
the programme
in terms of a ‘fictional docu-soap’, while the website of
Woestijnvis as well as
the official site of the show, which is significantly set up from
the point of view
of the family members and thus adds to the series’ ambiguous
‘stance’, either
refer to it as ‘docu-soap’, ‘reality soap’ or ‘documentary
series’.
Moreover, the advent of GDP followed by Kaat & Co in early
2004 came
with the ‘rebranding’ of the Één channel, which entailed a new
name and logo
but also new sorts of programming. Similarly, this change
included a
rearrangement of the prime-time schedule during weekdays: the

channel’s
popular soap Thuis was relocated to a later slot, creating a
vacant spot early
in the evening schedule, right after the news and a daily human-
interest mag-
azine. This gap between two high-rating programmes was
subsequently filled
with ‘docufiction’ like Kaat & Co on Tuesday and Thursday,
and traditional
docu-soaps on Monday and Wednesday, thus creating an
interesting (yet pos-
sibly confusing to some) parallel between both genres (also
accomplished
through the inclusion of a ‘slice of life’ phrase in Kaat & Co’s
full title).
Moving Kaat & Co to an earlier slot (it started off following
Thuis) made
sense because of its large share of the young audience, but also
indicated a
typical hammock strategy at work, enabling new initiatives in
television pro-
gramming to develop gradually (VRT, 2005). GDP initially
followed Thuis
on Friday evening, the ‘comedy’ spot in the broadcaster’s
schedule, but
moved to the top Sunday evening slot for its second season.
The (fictional) docu-soap look
As Kaat & Co and GDP essentially rely on the plotting and
structuring
devices typical of soaps and sitcoms, their narrative appeal is
much the same
as that of traditional fictional family series. However, the
combination of top-
ics of everyday life, first-person experiences and emotions, and
character

interaction with a marked documentary ‘look’ relates these
programmes to
the docu-soap format. In this regard, Kaat & Co and GDP could
be under-
stood as fictional counterparts of series like An American
Family (PBS), The
Family (BBC) or Sylvania Waters (ABC/BBC) and of celebrity
docu-soaps,
respectively. Similar to these early and recent predecessors, our
cases are
based on the premise of observational cinema settling into a
particular setting
and providing an account of life as it unfolds in front of the
camera’s eye.
Thus, small crews shoot on location with lightweight camera
equipment, rely-
ing on available light only, and (apparently) eschewing any
interference with
the pro-filmic event. However, as is the case with the typical
docu-soap for-
mat, the assumption of a fly-on-the-wall observationalism that
ensues from
such an approach is undermined in the series under study. That
is, the filmed
subjects frequently acknowledge the presence of the camera
crew as they
reflect, comment, inform, testify or recount while going about
their doings or

in interview segments (where we occasionally see or hear the
interviewer).
Moreover, the audience is directly addressed by descriptive
voice-over narra-
tion, and there is the addition of a musical soundtrack to
heighten the dra-
matic, emotional or ludicrous appeal of the moment. Through
the use of the
conventional formal features of the docu-soap mentioned above,
and drawing
on the expectations of a ‘knowing’ audience (that is familiar
with these codes
and their truth claims), the programme-makers attempt to
enhance the reality
credentials of the series.
Yet, at the same time, features like voice-over commentary and
particularly
interview segments that are typically related to non-fiction
discourses, extend
the representational strategies of the programme-makers. In
contrast to tradi-
tional fictional series, which most often shun these techniques
so as to mini-
mally disrupt the ‘fascinated’ involvement of the viewer in the
diegesis,
mockumentaries use commentary and interviews to provide
descriptive or
explanatory accounts and testimonies, which develop the
narrative and the
characters in ways common to the docu-soap format. Kaat & Co
and GDP
deploy voice-over narration (provided by an ‘external’, male
narrator) rather
restrictively to effect transitions (also accomplished through the
musical score

and, in Kaat & Co, through inserts of city life which convey a
sense of the
‘townscape’ and add to the series’ urban atmosphere) and to
briefly introduce
or …
AMAM7005A: TELEVISION AND REALITY
General Information
Credit Value: 20 Level: 7
Academic Year: 2016-17 Semester: Autumn
Total Student Effort Hours: 200 Related Modules: none
Module Teaching Team
Stephanie Clayton Brett Mills
Biography: Stephanie’s research and teaching Brett researches
and teaches TV
interests include contemporary British Studies, Media Studies,
and television and
surveillance society. contemporary popular culture.
Role: seminar tutor module convenor/seminar tutor
Room: Registry 3.32 Registry 3.22
Email: [email protected][email protected]
Phone: tbc 01603 592094
Office Hours: Monday 11-12, 1-2 Wednesday 10-12
Timetable
Seminar 1: Friday 9-11am LSB 0.113 Stephanie Clayton
Seminar 2: Friday 11am-1pm TEC 1.03 Brett Mills
Module Description and Learning Outcomes
Description

This unit examines the particular ways in which television – as
a technology, an institution, and a
social phenomenon – records, responds to, and contributes
towards our sense of reality.
Taking recent developments within television and society – such
as the growth of surveillance, genre
hybrids, and the availability of media technology – as its
starting point, it will explore a range of
genres – such as documentary, reality television, and comedy –
from a predominantly British and
public service broadcasting perspective.
The unit will explore how certain texts signal themselves as
different from television ‘fiction’, and
how convincingly that distinction can be maintained. It will also
explore the role such factual
television plays within society and for broadcasters, and how
newer forms of factual television feed
into these debates. These programmes will also be explored in
terms of how they help construct our
view of reality and the world around us, related to issues such
as postmodernism, visual culture, the
surveillance society, and the technology of record.
Learning Objectives
The unit aims:
x to introduce students to key theories of television analysis, in
particular those relative to the
representational strategies of the medium, and the ways in
which television constructs a sense of
‘reality’;
x to demonstrate ways of critically applying these theories to a
range of relevant phenomena;

x to encourage students to test the theories through empirical
analysis, and to present that work in
a variety of forms;
x to develop students’ oral and written skills in analysis,
presentation, and debate.
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding
By the end of the unit students should be able to: understand
key issues concerning the role of
television within modern societies, and the medium’s
representational strategies; understand
television in terms of the organisation of social life and
understanding; understand key theoretical
debates about television and contemporary society; undertake
their own independent research of
contemporary television.
Intellectual Skills
By the end of the unit students should be able to: apply ideas
and concepts in the discussion of
television; construct coherent and independent arguments.
Professional Skills
The unit will develop students' ability to: select, sift and
synthesize information from a variety of
primary and secondary materials; write accurately and
grammatically and present written material
using appropriate conventions.
Transferable Skills
The unit will also develop students' ability to: manage a large
and disparate body of information; use

IT to word process their assessed essays; speak and write
cogently about a chosen subject area.
Learning Activities and Indicative Student Effort Hours
Learning Activity Total Effort Hours (module) Effort Hours per
Week
Seminars 20 2
Pre-class preparation 40 4
Formative assessments 30 Varies across weeks
Feedback/forwards events 18 Varies across weeks
Summative assessments 60 Varies across weeks
Background reading 30 3
Tutorials 2 Varies across weeks
Total 200
Useful Links
The following links provide quick and easy access to key
sources of information and sources of
support within the University and important policies that you
need to be aware of.
x General Regulations
x Attendance and Engagement & Progression (General
Regulation 13)
x Coursework Submission Process
x Plagiarism and Collusion Policy
x Extenuating Circumstances Policy
x Senate Marking Scales (UG and PGT)
x Support for Students with Specific Learning Difficulties
(SpLDs)
x Learning Enhancement Team (DOS)
x Link to Past Examination Papers
x Other information, guidance and policies can be found in the
LTS Document Library.
Attribute Development
On this module you will develop knowledge, insights and

attributes that are readily transferable into
a wide range of current or future environments. The attributes
are articulated below so you can
understand how the module will help you thrive on your course
and prepare you for whatever you
plan to do after your studies (further study, work, etc). These
attributes are also articulated within
the UEA Award (see https://www.uea.ac.uk/careers/students-
and-graduates/uea-award).
Academic Excellence
Critical Thinking and
Problem Solving
Learning and Personal
Development
Digital Literacy and IT
In-depth and extensive
knowledge,
understanding and skills
in chosen discipline(s)
;
A capacity for
independent,
conceptual and
creative thinking
;

A commitment to
developing
professional values,
self-insight and
capabilities
;
Confidently employ a
range of digital
technologies for
academic and
professional/ career
development purposes
;
The ability to collect,
collate, analyse and
critically engage with a
wide range of
information sources, and
evidence
;
A capacity for
informed argument
and logical reasoning
;
The ability to respond
positively to
constructive criticism
and feedback from
peers, tutors and

colleagues
;
Use appropriate
digital technologies
and resources to
locate diverse types of
information for both
academic and non-
academic purposes
;
The ability to analyse and
critically engage with a
wide range of concepts
and ideas
;
A capacity for
problem identification
and problem-solving ;
Self-confidence and an
ability to exercise own
‘voice’ ;
The ability to
critically evaluate and
engage with the
information obtained
;
Self-management and

Professionalism
Team-Working and
Leadership
Communication
Applied Numeracy and
Technical Proficiency
A capacity for taking
responsibilities and
ownership of actions ;
An ability to co-
operate and
collaborate with
others, including
working to shared
aims
;
An ability to
communicate in
written form for
different purposes,
audiences and contexts
;
An ability to perform
routine calculations in
daily tasks and in
applied contexts

An ability to manage
time effectively,
including setting
priorities, juggling
competing demands and
meeting deadlines
;
An ability to take
other viewpoints, have
empathy for other
people’s position and
give constructive
feedback
;
An ability to
communicate in
person for different
purposes, audiences
and contexts
;
An ability to analyse
and interpret data and
evidence
;
An understanding of
work cultures and
practices, including work
place professionalism

An ability to motivate
and lead others,
including taking the
initiative and
delegating when
required
;
An ability to network
effectively with others
for specific purposes ;
Proficiency in skilled
techniques used for
academic and
professional purposes
;
Career Management Commercial Awareness
Innovation and
Enterprise
Citizenship and
Stewardship
A capacity to reflect on
and articulate qualities,
strengths and attributes ;
A knowledge of the
link between
academic subjects and

their commercial
applications
The confidence to
introduce and establish
something new ;
An understanding of
your place within
local and global
communities
;
The ability to research
specific job and career
areas
An understanding of
business priorities and
the needs of graduate
employers
The potential to take
an idea through to its
practical application
An awareness of the
need to manage
shared and finite
resources, including
an appreciation of
moral and ethical
dimensions

;
An ability to present your
experience and attributes
positively to graduate
employers
The ability to
understand and
prioritise customer
needs
The potential to apply
an enterprising mind-
set to situations
An ability to improve
the lives of others and
lobby for positive
change through
community and/or
political engagement
;
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment is assessment for learning as opposed to
summative assessment which is
assessment of learning. Its key purpose is to enable you to
practice and demonstrate the academic
skills and knowledge that you will be required to apply in your

subsequent summative work, and to
receive early feedback from your tutor(s).
Formative Assessment 1
Assignment Deadline: Wednesday 19 October 2016
Method of Submission: Electronic (not via Hub)
Method of Return: Electronic (not via Hub)
Format and Purpose of Feed-Forwards: Preparation for
formative assessment 2
Assignment detail: Essay proposal
Formative Assessment 2
Assignment Deadline: Wednesday 30 November 2016
Method of Submission: Electronic (not via Hub)
Method of Return: Electronic (not via Hub)
Format and Purpose of Feed-Forwards: Preparation for
summative assessment
Assignment detail: Essay outline and plan
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment provides a measure of your performance
in relation to a formal piece of
assessed work – it is therefore often described as assessment of
learning. Summative assessment
may take many different forms (e.g. essays, projects,
dissertations, portfolios, OSCEs, exams, course
tests, poster presentations, oral presentations, lab reports).
Formative Assessment
Assessment Type: Coursework (CW)
% Weighting: 100%
Assignment Deadline: Thursday 5 January 2017
Method of Submission: Electronic (via Hub)
Return Date of Marked Work: 19 January 2017
Format of feedback: Written

Word limit: 3000 words
Method of Return: Hub
Assignment Details: Full-length research essay
Mapping Assessment to Module Learning Outcomes
All of the learning outcomes for this module will be assessed
via the single summative assessment.
Module Enhancements
Student feedback requested that worksheets be introduced in
order to signal to students the key
areas under discussion in class; these will be introduced for this
year.
The module has also been thoroughly updated in terms of
screenings, readings and topics.
Seminar Programme
Week Date Topic Readings
1 w/c 26 Oct Transitions
Week
n/a
2 w/c 3 Nov Opening
Issues
n/a
3 w/c 10 Nov Liveness and

Authenticity
Crisell, Andrew (2012) Liveness and Recording in the Media,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp1-17.
Dayan, Daniel, and Elihu Katz (1992) Media Events: the Live
Broadcasting of History, Cambridge and London: Harvard
University Press, pp1-24.
4 w/c 17 Nov Witnessing
and the
Witness
Ellis, John (2000) Seeing Things: Television in the Age of
Uncertainty,
London: IB Tauris, pp17-38.
Peters, John Durham (2009) ‘Witnessing’ in Paul Frosh and
Amit
Pinchevski (eds) Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of
Mass Communication’, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp23-
41.
5 w/c 24 Nov Issues of
Realism
Fiske, John and John Hartley (2003) Reading Television, 2nd
ed,
London: Routledge, pp127-37.
Jordan, Marion (1981) ‘Realism and Convention’ in Richard
Dyer et al
(eds) Coronation Street, London: British Film Institute, pp27-
39.
6 w/c 31 Oct The

Surveillance
Society
Lyon, David (2007) Surveillance Studies: An Overview,
Cambridge:
Polity, pp139-58.
Meyrowitz, Joshua (2009) ‘We Liked to Watch: Television as
Progenitor of the Surveillance Society’, The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 625 (1):
pp32-48.
7 w/c 7 Nov Tutorials n/a
8 w/c 14 Nov Documentary Corner, John (1996) The Art of
Record: A Critical Introduction to
Documentary, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp9-
30.
Kilborn, Richard and John Izod (1997) An Introduction to
Television
Documentary, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp3-
26.
9 w/c 21 Nov Docudrama/
Drama-
Documentary
Corner, John (1999) ‘British TV Dramadocumentary: Origins
and
Developments’ in Alan Rosenthal (ed) Why Docudrama? Fact-
Fiction on Film and TV, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern
Illinois University Press, pp35-46.
Paget, Derek (2011) No Other Way to Tell It: Docudrama on
Film and

Television, 2nd ed, Manchester: Manchester University Press,
pp131-70.
10 w/c 28 Nov Mock-
Documentary
Hight, Craig (2010) Television Mockumentary: Reflexivity,
Satire and a
Call to Play, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp1-12.
Mast, Jelle (2009) ‘New Directions in Hybrid Popular
Television: A
Reassessment of Television Mock-Documentary’, Media,
Culture and Society, 31 (2): pp231-50.
11 w/c 5 Dec Comedy and
Documentary
Middleton, Jason (2014) Documentary’s Awkward Turn: Cringe
Comedy and Media Spectatorship, New York and London:
Routledge, pp140-70.
Thompson, Ethan (2007) ‘Comedy Verité? The Observational
Documentary Meets the Televisual Sitcom’, The Velvet Light
Trap, 60 (1): pp63-72.
12 w/c 12 Dec Tutorials n/a
Learning Support Materials
There is no set text for this unit. Instead, readings will be made
online via Blackboard. Two readings
are allocated each week, and associated questions and tasks will
be distributed in the screening.

Seminars will assume you’ve carried this work out; attendance
without completing the required
preparation will hinder learning for everyone.
In addition, it’s likely that you’ll be called on to prepare work –
either individually or as part of a
small group – for the seminar. Help will be given as much as
possible, but the intention will be for
you to explore the unit’s themes in a way you see appropriate.
Such work could draw on material
relevant to your proposed essay, and therefore will make a
useful contribution to your research and
thinking for the assignment. Work in the classroom is not
assessed, and is not taken into account
when your assignment is marked.
Listed below are books on the key issues relevant to this
module, as well as books on Television
Studies more generally, and related books on Film (though,
remember, Television Studies has
significantly different approaches and traditions compared to
Film Studies, and therefore such
literature cannot be unproblematically transferred to this
module’s material). Recommended books
are marked with an asterisk.
Television, Reality, and Documentary
Armstrong, Richard (2005) Understanding Realism, London:
British Film Institute.
Beattie, Keith (2004) Documentary Screens, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Bignell, Jonathan (2005) Big Brother: Reality TV in the 21st
Century, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Biressi, Anita, and Heather Nunn (2005) Reality TV: Realism
and Revelation, London: Wallflower.
*Bruzzi, Stella (2000) New Documentary: A Critical
Introduction, London: Routledge.
*Corner, John (1996) The Art of Record: A Critical Introduction
to Documentary, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Dovey, Jon (2000) Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual
Television, London: Pluto.
Ellis, John (2012) Documentary: Witness and Self-Revelation,
London: Routledge.
Escoffery, David S. (ed) (2006) Essays in Truth and
Representation: How Real is Reality TV?, Jefferson:
McFarland and Company.
*Friedman, James (ed) (2002) Reality Squared: Televisual
Discourse on the Real, New Brunswick,
New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press.
Hartley, John (1996) Popular Reality: Audiences and Popular
Factual Television, London: Routledge.
*Hill, Annette (2005) Reality TV: Audiences and Popular
Factual Television, London: Routledge.
Hill, Annette (2007) Restyling Factual TV: Audiences, News,
Documentary, and Reality Genres,
London: Routledge.
*Holmes, Su, and Deborah Jermyn (eds) (2004) Understanding
Reality Television, London: Routledge.

Izod, John, Richard Kilborn, and Matthew Hibberd (eds) (2000)
From Grierson to the Docu-Soap:
Breaking the Boundaries, Luton: University of Luton Press.
Kilborn, Richard (2003) Staging the Real: Factual TV
Programming in the Age of Big Brother,
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
*Kilborn, Richard, and John Izod (1997) An Introduction to
Television Documentary: Confronting
Reality, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
King, Geoff (ed) (2005) The Spectacle of the Real: From
Hollywood to Reality TV and Beyond, Bristol:
Intellect.
Mathijs, Ernest, and Janet Jones (eds) (2004) Big Brother
International: Formats, Critics, and Publics,
London and New York: Wallflower.
Murray, Susan, and Laurie Ouellette (eds) (2004) Reality TV:
Re-Making Television Culture, New York:
New York University Press.
Paget, Derek (1998) No Other Way to Tell It:
Dramadoc/Docudrama on Television, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
*Roscoe, Jane, and Craig Hight (2001) Faking It: Mock-
Documentary and the Subversion of Factuality,
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Rosenthal, Alan (ed) (1999) Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on

Film and TV, Carbondale and
Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press
Thirkell, Robert (2010) C.O.N.F.L.I.C.T.: An Insider’s Guide to
Storytelling in Factual/Reality TV and
Film, London: Methuen.
Turner, Graeme (2004) Understanding Celebrity, London: Sage.
*Ward, Paul (2005) Documentary: the Margins of Reality,
London Wallflower.
Winston, Brian (2000) Lies, Damn Lies, and Documentaries,
London: British Film Institute.
Television Studies
Allen, Robert C. (ed) (1992) Channels of Discourse,
Reassembled, London: Routledge.
*Allen, Robert C., and Annette Hill (eds) (2004) The Television
Studies Reader, London: Routledge.
Ang, Ien (1996) Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media
Audiences for a Postmodern World, London:
Routledge.
Bignell, Jonathan (2004) An Introduction to Television Studies,
London: Routledge.
Boyd-Barrett, and Chris Newbold (eds) (1995) Approaches to
Media: A Reader, London: Arnold.
Burton, Graeme (2000) Talking Television: An Introduction to
the Study of Television, London: Arnold.
Buscombe, Edward (ed) (2000) British Television: A Reader,

Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Calvert, Ben, Bernadette Casey, Justin Lewis, Liam French, and
Neil Casey (2008) Television Studies:
The Key Concepts, 2nd edition, London and New York:
Routledge.
*Ellis, John (1982) Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video,
London: Routledge.
Geraghty, Christine, and David Lusted (eds) (1997) The
Television Studies Book, London: Arnold.
Hartley, John (1999) Uses of Television, London: Routledge.
Laughey, Dan (2007) Key Themes in Media Theory,
Maidenhead: Open University Press.
*Lury, Karen (2005) Interpreting Television, London: Hodder
Arnold.
Miller, Toby (ed) (2002) Television Studies, London: British
Film Institute.
Morley, David (1992) Television, Audiences, and Cultural
Studies, London: Routledge.
*Newcomb, Horace (ed) (2000) Television: the Critical View,
6th Edition, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Williams, Raymond (2003 [1974]) Television: Technology and
Cultural Form, London: Routledge.

Film and Reality
Black, Joel (2002) The Reality Effect: Film Culture and the
Graphic Imperative, London and New York:
Routledge.
Juhasz, Alexandra, and Jess Larner (eds) (2006) F is for Phony:
Fake Documentary and Truth’s
Undoing, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota
Press.
Lay, Samantha (2002) British Social Realism: From
Documentary to Brit-Grit, London: Wallflower.
*Nichols, Bill (1991) Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts
in Documentary, Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Nichols, Bill (1994) Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning
in Contemporary Culture, Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Plantinga, Carl (1997) Rhetoric and Representation in
Nonfiction Film, Cambridge: CUP.
Rollyson, Carl (2004) Documentary Film: A Primer, New York:
Universe.
Rosenstone, Robert A. (1995) Visions of the Past: the Challenge
of Film to Our Idea of History,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Rosenthal, Alan (ed) (1988) New Challenges for Documentary,
Berkeley: University of California
Press.

Singer, Irving (1998) Reality Transformed: Film as Meaning
and Technique, Cambridge and London:
MIT Press.
Winston, Brian (1995) Claiming the Real: The Griersonian
Documentary and its Legitimations,
London: British Film Institute.
Useful Websites
Box of Broadcasts https://learningonscreen.ac.u k/ondemand/
Broadcast http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/
Critical Studies in Television
http://www.criticalstudiesintelevision.com/
International Documentary Association
http://www.documentary.org/
M/C http://www.media-culture.org.au/
MediaGuardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/media
ScreenOnline http://www.screenoline.org.uk/
Screensite http://www.screensite.org/
Surveillance and Society http://www.surveillance-and-
society.org/
Useful Podcasts/Audio
The Media Podcast http://themediapodcast.com/
The Media Show http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dv9hq
Media Masters http://www.mediafocus.org.uk/

On the Media http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm
AMAM7005A: Television and Reality
Further Guidance for Formative Assessment 2
Relative Reality and Absolute Reality
in a Documentary
（侧重于电视纪录(TV documentary)，而非电影类型的纪录片）
Yuwei Tang
(Nancy)
100155343

Outline of Aim
Most people think that documentaries always tell us the truth,
and it is a reliable type of film for people to get some
knowledge or information. However, actually, sometimes
documentaries could deceive you. In this article it will analyse
what are the absolute reality parts and the relative reality parts
in a documentary film. It will from the aspects of story
background, film produce process, etc.
Outline of Structure
· First Part: Introduction
· What is “documentary”?
· What functions do documentary films have?
· why people think it always tell us the reality?
· Second Part: Main body
paragraph 1:
a. Relative reality parts in a documentary
· 电影的前期策划构思
· film editing
· 导演的主观价值导向
b. Why these parts in a documentary is not absolute reality?
· 电影的制作目的Aim of the film/ Director
paragraph 2: Absolute reality parts in a documentary
· raw materials
· true stories
paragraph 3: mock documentary
· define what is mock documentary
· what relationship between documentary and mock
documentary?
· Third Part: Conclusion
Outline of Examples
Nanook of the North
A famous documentary. When the film was made, the Eskimo
have not used traditional way to fish any more, but they acted

for this film. It uses dramatic reconstruction to tell audience
what happened in the past.
（还需要找一个TV
documentary的例子，可以是BBC的，也可以是CCTV的，用作主要的案例
分析。）
Best in Show （伪记录片）
A mock documentary.
Indicative bibliography
Pual Ward’s (2005) Documentary, the margins of reality
“This book aims to give a brief introduction to and overview of
some of the key features, moments and theoretical debates of its
subject matter—documentary.” (Paul,2005)
In this book, it gives a definition about documentary, and
discuss what are functions of documentary.
Alexandra Jubasz and Jesse Lerner’s (2006) F is for phony, fake
documentary and truth’s undoing
In this book, it is talk about fake documentary mainly, it can
help me to define and give some examples about mock
documentary.
Crain Winston’s (2008) Claiming the Real 2, documentary:
Grierson and Beyond
It is a book that discuss reality in a documentary film. Such as,
part 2: creative: documentary as Art, and part 3: Treatment:
documentary as drama. From the aspect of film making to
illustrate the reality in a documentary.
Craig Hight’s (2010) Television Mockumentary
Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight’s (2001) Faking It
(The last two books that I have not read it, but I am going to
read.)
Evidence of learning
In week 8, we discussed in class about “documentary realism”.
and week 10, mock documentary.

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